'Why don't I believe you?'


'Listen, I want you to stay away from me,' Buchanan said.


'And end a beautiful relationship? Now you're trying to hurt my feelings.'


'I'm serious. You don't want to be around me. You don't want to attract attention.'


'What are you talking about?'


Buchanan crossed the lobby, heading toward the hospital's gift shop.


'Hey, you're not going to get rid of me that easily.' Her high heels made muffled sounds on the lobby's carpet.


'I'm trying to do you a favor,' Buchanan said. 'Take the strong hint. Stay clear of me.'


In the gift shop, he paid for a box of super-strength Tylenol. His head wouldn't stop aching. He'd been tempted to ask the doctor to give him a prescription for something to stop the pain, but he'd known that the doctor would have been troubled enough as a consequence to want to keep him in the hospital longer. The only consolation was that the headache distracted Buchanan from the pain in his side.


Holly followed him from the gift shop. 'I've got a few things to show you.'


'Not interested.' He stopped at a water fountain, swallowed three Tylenol, wiped water from his mouth, and headed toward the exit. 'What does interest me is getting my belongings back.'


'Not a chance.'


'Holly.' He pivoted sharply toward her. 'Let's pretend I am the kind of person you think I am. What do you suppose would happen to you if I told the people I work for that you had a false passport with my picture in it? How long do you think you'd get to walk around with it?'


Her emerald eyes became more intense. 'Then you didn't tell them.'


'What do you mean?'


'I wondered if you would. I doubted it. You don't want your superiors knowing you had that passport - and lost it. What did you want it for in the first place?'


'Isn't it obvious? So I'd be able to leave the country.'


'Is there something wrong with using your own passport?'


'Yeah.' Buchanan scanned the people near the exit. 'I don't have one. I've never been issued one.'


They reached the noisy street. Again the glare of the sun stabbed his eyes. 'Where's your friend? Ted. The guy on the train. It's my guess you don't go anywhere without him.'


'He's nearby, looking out for my welfare.'


'Using a two-way radio? I won't keep talking with you unless you prove to me this conversation isn't being recorded.'


She opened her purse. 'See? No radio.'


'And my belongings aren't in there, either. Where'd you put them?'


'They're safe.'


In front of the hospital, a man and a woman got out of a taxi. Buchanan hurried to get in after they walked toward the lobby.


Holly scrambled in after him.


'This isn't a good idea,' Buchanan said.


'Where to?' the driver asked.


'Holiday Inn-Crowne Plaza.'


As the taxi pulled from the curb, Buchanan turned to Holly. 'This is not the game you seem to think it is. I want my belongings returned to me. Give me the key to your room. I'll get what's mine, pack your things, and check you out.'


'What makes you think I want to leave the hotel?'


Buchanan leaned close. 'Because you do not want to be seen near me. Don't ask me to be more explicit. This is as plain as I can make it.'


'You're trying to scare me again.'


'You bet, and lady, I hope I'm succeeding.'


6


'Close enough,' Buchanan told the driver.


'But we got another two blocks, suh.'


'This is fine. Take the lady for a drive. Be back on this corner in thirty minutes.' Buchanan stared at Holly. 'The key to your room.' He held out his hand.


'You're really serious.'


'The key.'


Holly gave it to him. 'Lighten up. Your belongings, as you call them, aren't in my room anyhow.'


'Where are they? In Ted's room?'


She didn't answer.


'I mean it, Holly. Neither you nor your friend wants to be found with my things in their possession. It wouldn't be healthy for you.'


Her face changed color slightly, paling, as if he were finally getting his message across. 'What do I get in return?'


'Peace of mind.'


'Not good enough,' Holly said.


'What do you want?'


'The chance to keep talking with you.'


'I told you I'll be back in half an hour.'


Holly studied him. 'Yes. All right. They're in Ted's room.'


'I don't suppose you have a key to it.'


'As a matter of fact.' She handed it to him. 'In case I needed to get your belongings and Ted wasn't around.'


'You just did a very smart thing.' Buchanan got out of the taxi. 'Be careful when you pack my underwear. They're expensive. I don't want the lace torn.' Buchanan stared at her and shut the door.


7


The two blocks felt like two miles. Along the way, Buchanan unwrapped the bandage from around his skull and shoved it into a trash can. By the time he reached the Crowne Plaza, he felt lightheaded, his brow filmed with sweat. His only consolation was that as he entered the softly lit lobby, escaping the hammer force of the sun, his headache felt slightly less severe.


Rather than go directly up to Ted's room and then Holly's, he decided he'd first better learn if he had any messages. He checked the lobby to see if anybody showed any interest in him.


There. In the corner on the right next to the entrance. A man, late twenties, in a blue seersucker suit. Sitting in a lounge chair. Reading a newspaper.


The well-built man was in a perfect position to see people coming into the lobby before they had a chance to notice him. The man's glance in Buchanan's direction was ever so brief but ever so intense. And like a good operative, the man gave no sign that he recognized Buchanan.


So they staked out the hotel, Buchanan thought.


But it isn't me they're looking for.


No. The person they're looking for is Holly.


Showing no indication that the man in the corner interested him, Buchanan went over to the front desk, waited while a clerk took care of a guest, and then stepped forward.


'Yes, sir?'


'Are there any messages for me? My room number's.'


The clerk smiled, waiting.


'My room number's.'


'Yes?'


'. Damn.' Buchanan's pulse raced. 'I can't remember what it is. I left my key here at the desk when I went out, so I'm afraid I can't tell you the number on it.'


'No problem, sir. All you have to do is give me your name. The computer will match the name with your room number.'


'Victor Grant,' Buchanan said automatically.


The clerk tapped some letters on a computer keyboard, hummed, and studied the screen. He began to frown. 'Sorry, sir. No one by that name is registered here.'


'Victor Grant. There must be.'


'No, sir.'


Jesus, Buchanan suddenly realized. 'Brendan Buchanan. I gave you the wrong name.'


'Wrong name? What do you mean, sir?'


'I'm an actor. We're making a movie in town. My character's name is Victor Grant. I'm so used to responding to that name I. If I'm into my character that much, I ought to win an Oscar.'


'What kind of movie is it, sir?'


'Did you ever see The Big Easy?'


'Of course, sir. I see all the films made in New Orleans.'


'Well, this is the sequel.'


'I have it now, sir. Brendan Buchanan. Room twelve-fourteen. And no, there aren't any messages.'


'Could I have my key, please?'


The clerk complied. 'What other movies have you been in?'


'None. Until now, I've worked on the stage. This is my big break. Thanks.'


Buchanan walked toward the elevator. He pressed the button and gazed straight ahead, waiting for the doors to open, certain that the clerk was staring toward him. Don't look back. Don't look back.


Victor Grant? You're losing it, buddy. When you left the hospital, you made the same mistake. You told the nurse you were.


No. That was a different mistake. You told the nurse you were Peter Lang. Now you say you're.


You can't even keep the names consistent.


His head ached. It wouldn't stop aching.


The doors at last opened. Inside, alone, as the elevator rose, Buchanan sagged against a wall, wiping sweat from his forehead, wondering if he were going to be sick.


Can't. I have to keep moving.


He had no intention of going to his room. The only reason he'd lied and told the clerk that he'd left his key at the desk before going out was that he needed an explanation for his not being able to say what his room number was. What had really happened to his key was that it had fallen out of his jacket while it was being removed from him after he was wounded. He was so preoccupied that he truly couldn't recall the number of his room. The lapse scared him.


Two floors above his own, he got off the elevator and used the key that Holly had given him to open Ted's door. It took him less than five minutes to find the gun and Victor Grant's passport where Ted had hidden them under the mattress.


Victor Grant. Buchanan stared at the photograph in the passport. He was tempted to tear the document to pieces and burn it in the sink. That would solve one problem. There'd be one less piece of evidence linking him to a past identity. But what he'd told Holly was true. He'd hung on to the passport in case he needed to get out of the country. And the way things were developing, he might still have a need to do that.


Victor Grant.


Peter Lang.


Brendan Buchanan.


Pick one, damn it. Be consistent.


What are you here for?


Juana.


Where was she last night? Why did somebody stab me? Was somebody trying to stop me from helping.?


Pay attention. What are you going to do?


Hell, who am I going to be?


Holly. He still had to deal with.


He looked in a closet and found a brown sport coat that Ted had left. Although Ted had broader shoulders, the garment fit Buchanan better than he expected. He shoved the passport into one of its pockets and the gun behind his belt at the spine, making sure that the jacket covered it. When he left the room, no one noticed.


Now for Holly's room.


It was two doors down, and as Buchanan approached it, he kept thinking about the man in the seersucker suit in the lobby. If they staked out the hotel, isn't it logical that they'd put someone in Holly's room to grab her when she came in? Maybe I ought to stay out of this. Maybe the smart thing to do is keep walking toward the elevator. Let Holly check herself out of the hotel, or let Ted do it for her. Now that I've got the gun and the passport, why should I care about.?


Buchanan slowed, thinking, The longer Holly waits, the greater the odds that someone will be in her room when she comes back.


So what? That still isn't your concern. If something happened to her, it'd be one less thing for you to worry about. One less.


He pivoted, knocked on her door, announced, 'Hotel housekeeping,' knocked again, and unlocked the door.


The room was empty. It took him even less time to pack her things than it had for him to find the gun and the passport in Ted's room. He took care only when he put her underwear into her suitcase. What Holly had said was true. It was expensive, and it did have lace. He liked the feel of it.


She would have been required to leave a credit card number when she checked in. He found an early-check-out form on the counter beside the television, filled it out, and left it on the bed, pleased that she hadn't brought much luggage as he carried the two bags down the fire stairs and out a service exit, all the while thinking of the lace on the underwear he'd packed. It had been a long time since he'd felt intimate with a woman. Not had sex with but felt intimate with. As long as six years ago. And Juana.


8


Exertion, combined with the glaring sun, squeezed sweat from him. The stitches in his right side, the tenderness of his wound, required him to carry one bag in his left hand, the other wedged under his left arm. Exhaust fumes from passing cars aggravated his headache and made him nauseous.


At least, the taxi was waiting as promised. When the driver saw that Buchanan was having trouble with the bags, he got out. 'Here, let me help, suh.'


'Thanks.' Buchanan gave him ten dollars, then turned his attention toward Holly and someone else sitting in the back seat.


He frowned.


While the driver carried the bags toward the trunk, Buchanan got in the back seat next to a square-faced man who was built like a college football player gone to seed. 'Well, Ted, long time no see.'


From the opposite side, Holly leaned forward. 'I figured he might as well travel with us instead of keep following in another taxi. We picked him up while you were gone.'


'Ted, I appreciate the help with the bags.'


'What help?'


'My point exactly.'


'You should have asked.'


'I shouldn't have needed to.'


'Just like you didn't feel you needed to ask my permission to go into my room. I don't like the idea of someone rummaging through my stuff. And that's my jacket you're wearing.'


'Very observant. So what do you think, Ted? Doesn't fit me too bad, huh? Here's your key back.'


Holly tried to distract them. 'Did you find what you were looking for?'


'Right away. Ted isn't very good at this.'


'Hey,' Ted said.


'All right, I can understand why you're angry,' Holly said. 'When I saw you coming, I should have helped with the bags. I knew you'd just been released from the hospital. I'd have gotten out to help a friend.'


'Well, this guy isn't a friend,' Ted said.


'Ted,' Holly said in warning. She turned to Buchanan. 'Look, I'm sorry. Remember, it was your idea to check me out of that hotel. If you want to go in for melodramatic gestures to try to scare me, you can't expect me to cooperate in the tactic.'


'Then maybe we ought to go back so I can introduce you to the fellow waiting for you in the lobby.'


Holly's eyes narrowed. 'That's a joke, right?'


'He didn't look like he had a sense of humor.'


'This is all bullshit,' Ted said.


'Right, Ted. Bullshit,' Buchanan said. 'I don't care what happens to you, but until Holly and I get some issues settled, I'd just as soon she stayed in good health.'


'Quit trying to scare me,' Holly said.


'Where to, suh?' The driver had gotten back into the taxi and was waiting.


'That errand wore me out.' Buchanan rubbed his sweaty forehead. 'I came here to enjoy the sights. I think a river cruise would relax me. Why don't you take us over to Toulouse Street Wharf? It's almost two-thirty. Maybe we've still got time to get on the Natchez.'


As the taxi pulled into traffic, Holly said, 'For a man who claims he was never in New Orleans before, you certainly know a lot about the tourist attractions.'


'I studied them in a guide book.'


'Right. When was that? When you were unconscious?'


9


As its calliope whistled 'Way Down South in Dixie,' the colorfully trimmed paddlewheeler eased away from the wharf and began its tour along the Mississippi. Hundreds of passengers crowded the railings on the three decks, enjoying the breeze off the river, studying the docks they passed, warehouses, a refinery, a War-of-1812 battlefield, and a pre-Civil-War plantation mansion.


While the passengers seemed to enjoy the strength of the sun, Buchanan's eyes were still sufficiently sensitive that he stayed in the shadow of a canopy at the stern. Holly sat next to him. Since most passengers were at the railing, there was little chance that their conversation would be overheard.


Holly shook her head. 'I don't understand. Why a steamboat cruise?'


'Process of elimination.' Buchanan sipped from one of the Cokes that he'd bought for Holly and himself when they came aboard. 'I need time to think, a place to think.' After swallowing two more Tylenol, he shut his eyes and tilted his head back.


'You should have stayed in the hospital longer.'


'Too much to do,' Buchanan said.


'Yeah, like watching the muddy Mississippi. Ted didn't like it when you made him stay behind with my bags.'


'You said you wanted to talk. The thing is, I don't want company while we're doing it. This way, he can't follow. And pretty soon we'll be far enough that those two-way radios you mentioned won't be able to communicate with each other. By the way, where are you hiding yours? In your purse? Or maybe.?' Buchanan gestured toward the open neckline of her dress.


'Okay.' Sounding discouraged, she reached inside her dress, unhooked a tiny microphone and miniature transmitter from her bra strap, and handed it to him. 'You win.'


'Too easy.' Buchanan shut the transmitter off, feeling her body heat on the metal. 'How do I know there aren't others?'


'There's only one way to be sure. But if I wouldn't let you search me in your train compartment, I'm certainly not.'


'What did you want to talk about?'


'For starters, who do you think tried to kill you? And please, don't give me that guff about a walk-by, random stabbing.'


'Who? Yes, that's the big question, isn't it?'


'One of them.'


The issue had been preoccupying Buchanan since he'd wakened in the hospital. If he addressed it out loud, he'd also be distracting Holly from his role in Scotch and Soda. 'Open your purse.'


She did.


He didn't find a tape recorder.


'Okay, I'll tell you this much. I wasn't lying when I said I came to New Orleans to see a friend.' He debated whether to continue. 'A woman.' He thought about it. 'None of this is classified. I don't see any reason not to. It's been six years since I heard from her, but recently she sent me a message that she needed help. My friend is very independent. She's definitely not the type to ask for help unless the problem's serious.'


'This friend, was she your lover?'


'Are you a reporter or a gossip columnist? I ought to tell you that's none of your business.'


Holly waited.


Buchanan bit his lower lip. 'Could have been my lover. Maybe should have been. Maybe we'd have gotten married.'


'But.?'


'Well, let's just say I was having some problems figuring out who I was.' Past tense? Buchanan asked himself. At the moment. 'Anyway, I was supposed to meet her last night, eleven o'clock, at Caf‚ du Monde. She didn't show up. But that guy did with his knife.' Leaning back in the deck chair, feeling his handgun behind his belt and against his spine, Buchanan suddenly realized that the only reason his wound hadn't been more serious was that the gun had deflected the blade. As he appreciated how close he'd come to dying, he started sweating again.


In contrast, his mouth became dry. Disturbed, he swallowed more Coke. 'Is it a coincidence that the man happened to show up and pick me as a victim while I was looking for my friend, who happened not to show up? I try to keep an open mind. I do my best to have healthy skepticism. But the coincidence is too hard to ignore. I have to believe that my friend and the man with the knife are connected.'


'And he was trying to stop you from helping your friend?'


'Unless you can think of a better explanation.'


'Well, one part of your logic troubles me. Since she didn't show up, you wouldn't have been able to know what she wanted, so it wouldn't have been necessary for you to be stopped.'


'Or maybe-'


Buchanan's heartbeat matched the thump-thump-thump of the paddlewheeler's engine.


'Maybe someone was afraid that when she didn't show up, I'd become so upset that I wouldn't stop until I found out where she was and why she needed me.' Buchanan's voice hardened. 'If so, they were right to be afraid. Because that's exactly what's going to happen.'


10


The steamboat rounded a bend.


'At the hospital, you said you had something for me to look at.' Holly straightened. 'Yes. But you wouldn't give me a chance.'


'Because I wanted my belongings back. Now I've got them.' Despite his headache, Buchanan mustered strength. He had to keep playing the game. 'I'll look at whatever it is you want me to see. Anything it takes to settle your suspicions. I need to help my friend. But I can't do it if you keep interfering. Ask the rest of your questions. I want to be done with this.'


Holly opened her purse, studied him as if doubtful about something, then pulled three folded newspaper clippings from an envelope.


Puzzled, Buchanan took them and glanced at the date at the top of the first one. 'Six days ago.' He frowned.


He frowned harder when he saw that the story was datelined Fort Lauderdale.


EXPLOSION KILLS THREE


FT LAUDERDALE - A powerful explosion shortly before midnight last night destroyed a car in the parking lot of Paul's-on-


the-River restaurant, killing its occupant, identified by a remnant of his driver's license as Robert Bailey, 48, a native of Oklahoma. The explosion also killed two customers leaving the restaurant. Numerous other cars were destroyed or damaged. Charred fragments of a substantial amount of money found at the scene prompted authorities to theorize that the explosion may have been the consequence of a recent, escalating war among drug smugglers.


His heart now pounding faster than the thump-thump-thump of the paddlewheeler's engine, Buchanan lowered the clipping and turned to Holly. No matter what, he couldn't let her detect his reaction. His head ached even more fiercely. 'All those people killed. A terrible thing. But what does this have to do with me? Why did you show it to-?'


'Are you denying that you knew Robert Bailey?'


'I don't know anything about this.'


And that was certainly the truth, Buchanan thought.


He strained to look calm as dismay flooded through him.


Holly squinted. 'Mostly he called himself "Big Bob" Bailey. Maybe that refreshes your memory.'


'Never heard of him.'


'Jesus, Buchanan, you are making me impatient. You and I both know he bumped into you in Cancun. I was there.'


Buchanan felt as if he'd been jolted by electricity.


'I was watching from a corner of the restaurant,' Holly said. 'Club Internacional. I saw it happen. That's when all your trouble started. When Bailey stumbled into one of your lives.'


Buchanan came close to revealing his shock.


'Those two drug dealers became suspicious when Bailey called you "Crawford" instead of "Potter". They took you down to the beach. Bailey went after you. He told me later that he interrupted a fight. You shot the two drug dealers and their bodyguard. Then you ran along the beach into the night, and the police arrested Bailey, thinking he was responsible.'


'You're not a reporter. You're a fiction writer. When was this supposed to have happened? I've never been to Cancun. I've never.'


'Not as Brendan Buchanan you haven't, but you sure as hell were there as Ed Potter. I told you I was in the restaurant. I saw it happen!'


How? Buchanan thought. How did she get there? How did she know I'd be there? How did-?


'You saw me taking pictures of you outside the jail in Merida,' Holly said. 'Of course, that doesn't prove you knew Bailey, even though I saw the police bring him in to see you at the jail. But later, near Pier 66 in Fort Lauderdale, you saw me photographing you and Bailey talking to each other in the channel. I already showed you the pictures I took.'


'You showed me photographs, yes, and I admit one of the men did have some resemblance to me. He wasn't me,' Buchanan said. 'But he did resemble me. The thing is, I've never been to Fort Lauderdale, either.'


'I believe you.'


'Good.'


'As Brendan Buchanan. But as Victor Grant, you very definitely have been to Fort Lauderdale.'


Buchanan shook his head as if disappointed that she persisted in her delusion. 'And one of the men in the photographs you showed me is Bailey?'


Holly looked exasperated.


'I don't get it,' Buchanan said. 'Did you know this Bailey? Were you following him? Why are you so interested in.?'


'I wasn't following him. I was following you. And why am I interested in Bailey? Because he worked for me.'


Buchanan felt his stomach cramp.


Two children ran by, clampering down stairs to a lower deck. Their mother hurried after them, shouting for them to be careful. Buchanan was grateful for the interruption.


'Oh, he wasn't working for me when he bumped into you in Cancun,' Holly said. 'But I made sure he was working for me after that. What's the word you people use? I recruited him. A thousand dollars, plus expenses. Bailey was really down on his luck. He didn't think twice before he accepted.'


'That's still a lot of money for a reporter to be able.'


'Big story. Big expense account.'


'Your editor won't be happy when your story doesn't hang together.'


Holly looked furious. 'Are you on another planet? Do they teach you people to deny everything no matter how obviously true it is? Or are you so out of touch with reality that you can honestly convince yourself that none of this happened, because it happened to someone else, even though that someone else is you?'


'I'm sorry about what happened to Bailey,' Buchanan said. 'I meant what I told you. It's a terrible thing. But you have to believe me - I had nothing to do with it.'


Who did, though? Buchanan thought. How did-?


The answer was suddenly obvious.


They had plastic explosive in the walls of the cooler I gave him. When he got in his car, he must have opened the cooler to look at the money and.


That's all he had to do to detonate it. Open the cooler.


But what if he'd opened the cooler while I was with him?


'What's the matter?' Holly asked.


'. Excuse me?'


'You turned pale again.'


'It's just this headache.'


'I thought perhaps it was because you'd glanced at the second clipping.'


'Second.?' Buchanan lowered his gaze toward the second of the three clippings in his hand.


MURDER-SUICIDE


FT LAUDERDALE - Responding to a telephone call from a frightened neighbor, police early this morning investigated gunshots at 233 Glade Street in Plantation and discovered the bodies of Jack Doyle (34) and his wife, Cindy (30), both dead from bullet wounds. It is believed that Mr Doyle, despondent about his wife's cancer, shot her with a.38-caliber, snub-nosed revolver while she slept in their bedroom, then used the same weapon on himself.


Buchanan reread the story. He read it again. And then again. He stopped being aware of the motion of the steamboat, of its thumping engines, of the splashing paddlewheel. He was oblivious to the crowd at the railings, the trees along the river, and the humid breeze on his face.


He just kept staring at the piece of newspaper.


'I'm sorry,' Holly said.


Buchanan took a while before he realized that she had said something. He didn't respond. He just kept staring at the clipping.


'Are you going to deny you knew him? If you're tempted to, don't,' Holly said. 'I took photographs of you and Jack Doyle together, just as I did of you and Bailey.'


'No,' Buchanan said. With tremendous effort, he lowered the clipping and turned, concentrating on Holly. His mind reeled from the implications of what he'd just read. For the first time in his long career as a deep-cover operative, he did the unthinkable.


He broke cover. 'No.' His unsteadiness, combined with the motion of the steamboat, made him feel as if he were about to fall from his chair. 'I won't deny it. I knew Jack Doyle. And Cindy. His wife. I knew her, too. I liked her. I liked her a lot.'


Holly's eyes became more intense. 'Earlier, you were talking about coincidence, about how sometimes it has to be more than that, like your friend not showing up at Caf‚ du Monde but a man showing up to stab you. Well, that's how I feel about what you just read. You knew Bailey. He's dead. You also knew Jack Doyle and his wife. They're dead, too. And it all happened on the same night. What's.? I just realized something.'


'What?'


'The look on your face. You're a hell of a good actor. But nobody's that good. You really didn't know anything about Bailey and the Doyles being killed.'


'That's right.' Buchanan's throat was so dry that he could hardly speak. 'I didn't know.' His eyes ached as he reached for his Coke can and swallowed.


For an instant, he stubbornly suspected that he'd been tricked, that these newspaper clippings weren't genuine. But he couldn't maintain his suspicion. By hindsight, what had happened to Bailey and the Doyles felt so operationally right, so tactically logical that he didn't doubt the truth of what had happened. He'd been tricked, yes. But not by Holly.


'Or maybe there is a coincidence,' she said. 'Maybe Jack Doyle did just happen to kill his wife the same night Bailey died in an explosion.'


'No.'


'You think it was a double murder?'


'It can't be anything else.'


'How can you be sure?'


Buchanan pointed at the newspaper article. ' ". shot her with a thirty-eight-caliber, snub-nosed revolver." No way.'


'I'm missing something. What's wrong with using a thirty-eight-caliber.?'


'Snub-nosed revolver? This,' Buchanan said. 'Jack Doyle was an ex-SEAL.'


'Yes. A Navy commando. I still don't.'


'Weapons were his business. To him, a thirty-eight-caliber, snub-nosed revolver was a toy. Oh, he did have one in his house. For his wife. In case Cindy had to protect herself while he was away. But Jack had a lot of other handguns there as well, and for him, the weapon of choice was a nine-millimeter, semiautomatic pistol. He loved his wife so much that I envied him. Her cancer was serious. It wasn't responding to treatment. She was probably going to die from it. But it hadn't yet reached the point where her suffering was greater than her dignity could bear. When that day came, though, if Jack decided. with Cindy's permission. to free her from her suffering, he sure as hell would not have used a weapon that he didn't respect.'


'Your world's a whole lot different than mine,' Holly said. 'Ethics about which weapon to use for a murder-suicide.'


'Jack wasn't any nut. Don't think for a minute that.'


'No,' Holly said. 'That isn't what I meant. What I did mean was exactly what I said. Your world's very different than mine. No value judgment intended. My father was an attorney. He didn't approve of guns. The first time I saw one, aside from in movies, was when I was reporting on a gang war in Los Angeles.'


Buchanan waited.


'So,' Holly said. 'If it was a double murder, who did it? The same people who killed Bob Bailey?' Holly asked.


Temples throbbing, Buchanan sipped his Coke, then stared at the label. 'I had nothing to do with any of it.'


'You still haven't read the third newspaper clipping.'


Buchanan lowered his gaze, apprehensive about what he would see.


ACCIDENT VICTIM STILL NOT FOUND


FT LAUDERDALE - Divers continue to search for the body of Victor Grant, the presumed occupant of a rental car that last night crashed through a barrier and sank within a section of the Intracoastal Waterway south of Oakland Park Boulevard. Numerous empty beer cans in the vehicle lead authorities to suspect that Grant was intoxicated when he lost control of his car. A suitcase and a windbreaker containing a wallet with Victor Grant's identification were recovered from the car. Police suspect that the victim's body floated from an open window and became wedged between one of the numerous docks in the area.


Buchanan felt as if he plummeted and would never hit bottom.


'The reason I didn't kick and fight when you wanted your Victor Grant passport back,' Holly said, 'is I've taken photographs of every page. I've got photographs of you in Fort Lauderdale. I can link you to Bailey. I can link you to Doyle. This newspaper article proves that somebody named Victor Grant was in Fort Lauderdale and disappeared the same night Bailey and Doyle were killed. You said my editor would be disappointed because my story didn't hang together. Well, it seems to me that the story hangs together beautifully.'


Buchanan felt a jolt as if he had struck bottom.


'I'm waiting for a reaction,' Holly said. 'What do you think about my story now?'


'The real question is, What do I feel?'


'I don't understand.'


Buchanan rubbed his aching forehead. 'Why does ambition make people so stupid? Holly, the answer to the question, What do I feel?, is I feel terrified. And so should you. I'm a fortune teller, did you know that? I really have a gift for predicting the future. And given what you've just told me, I can guarantee that if you go any farther with this story, you'll be dead by this time tomorrow.'


Holly blinked.


'And,' Buchanan said, his voice hoarse, 'if I don't give the best performance of my life, so will I. Because the same people who killed Jack Doyle and Bob Bailey will make sure of it. Is that plain enough for you? Is that what you wanted me to say? That would make a good quote. It's too bad you can't use it.'


'Of course I can use it. I don't care if you deny it or-'


'You're not listening!'


Buchanan spoke so loudly that several people standing along the railing of the steamboat swung and stared at him.


He leaned close to Holly, his voice a raw whisper. 'In your world, people are afraid of getting caught breaking the law. In my world, people make their own laws. If they feel threatened, they'll shoot you or drop you from a building or hit you with a car and then have a good dinner, feeling justified because they've protected themselves. You will absolutely, positively, be dead by this time tomorrow if we don't find a way to convince my people that you are not a threat to them. If I feel terrified, you're a fool if you don't.'


Holly studied him. 'This is another act. You're just trying to trick me into backing off.'


'I give up,' Buchanan said. 'Look out for yourself. Believe me, I intend to look after myself.'


11


Buchanan walked into the Crowne Plaza's lobby. While he waited for the elevator, he glanced around and noticed that the man in the seersucker suit had been replaced by a man in a jogging suit. He, too, was pretending to read a newspaper. After all, there wasn't much to do that seemed natural while sitting in a lobby and watching for someone. This second man was a clone of the first: late twenties, well-built, short hair, intense eyes.


Military, Buchanan thought. The same as the first man. Civilian intelligence agencies had access to surveillance personnel of various appearances. In contrast, military surveillance operatives tended to resemble each other in terms of sex, age, body type, and hairstyle. More, they had a collected, disciplined, single-minded look about them.


Holly, he thought. They're still looking for her.


He got into the elevator, went up to the twelfth floor, and took out his key. Holly's revelations on the steamboat, combined with the pain in his side and the ache in his head, had exhausted him. Fear had exerted its effect. He needed to rest. He needed to think.


When he opened the door.


Three people were waiting for him. They sat in plain view, obviously not wanting to startle him and provoke a defensive reaction.


Buchanan knew each of them.


Alan, the portly man who a few days before had been Buchanan's debriefer at the apartment complex in Alexandria, Virginia, sat on the bed. In Alexandria, he'd habitually worn a brown-checkered sport coat. Here, his sport coat was again checkered, but this time the color was blue.


On the sofa, a muscular man - Major Putnam - sat next to an attractive, blonde woman - Captain Weller. Buchanan had met them on the yacht in Fort Lauderdale. Each wore civilian clothes: in the major's case, a beige suit; in the captain's, a white, silk blouse and blue skirt, both of which were tight and were no doubt intended to attract public attention away from the two men.


Buchanan glanced toward the right, toward the bathroom, to make sure that no one else was waiting. The closet was open, unoccupied.


He took his key from the lock, closed the door, locked it, and walked toward them. Late-afternoon sunlight filled the room.


'Captain,' the major said.


Buchanan nodded and stopped five feet away.


'You don't seem surprised to see us,' the major said.


'At the Farm, I had an Agency trainer who used to say, "The only thing you ought to expect is the unexpected."'


'Good advice,' the woman said. 'I understand a mugger stabbed you.'


'That I certainly didn't expect.'


'How's the wound?'


'Healing. Where's the colonel?'


'I'm afraid he couldn't make it,' Alan said.


'Well, I hope you haven't been waiting long.'


'Aren't you curious how we got in?'


Buchanan shook his head.


'Captain' - the major looked displeased - 'you were seen in the hotel lobby at one-forty-five. Supposedly you were going to your room. Now you've come back, but no one saw you leave in the interim. Where have you been for the past three hours?'


'Taking a steamboat ride.'


'Is that before or after you checked the reporter out of her room?'


'So you know about that? After. In fact, the reporter went with me on the steamboat ride.'


'What?' Captain Weller leaned forward, her blouse tightening against her breasts. 'Weren't you informed that we were looking for her?'


'I was told you intended to discourage her. But she kept hounding me, so I decided to do some discouraging of my own. I scared her away from the story.'


'You.? How did.?'


'By using her arguments against her. She showed me these.' Buchanan pulled the newspaper clippings from a jacket pocket and set them on the coffee table. As the major grabbed and read them, Buchanan continued, 'About Bob Bailey dying in an explosion. About Jack Doyle killing his wife and then himself. Alan' - Buchanan turned to him - 'you left out a few things when you told me what happened in Fort Lauderdale after I disappeared from there. Did you know about Bailey and the Doyles?'


'It didn't seem necessary to tell you.'


'Why?'


'The less you knew about Bailey, the better. If you were interrogated, your confusion would be genuine. As far as the Doyles are concerned, well, we didn't want to burden you with the knowledge that a man you had worked with had killed his wife and then himself shortly after you left them.'


'I convinced the reporter that what happened to the Doyles was actually a double murder.'


'You what? Oh, Jesus,' the major said.


'I asked her to consider a hypothetical situation,' Buchanan said. 'If Bailey was killed because he was blackmailing me, and if the Doyles were killed because they knew too much and might be linked to me when the divers couldn't find my body, what did that say about the further lengths certain people would go in order to keep Scotch and Soda - she mentioned it first - a secret? I don't think there's anything paler than a redhead when the blood drains from her face. She suddenly realized how much danger she was in, that writing a front-page story wasn't worth losing her life for. She's in a taxi on her way to the airport, where she'll catch the first plane back to Washington. There won't be any story.'


'You actually believe her?'


'Yes. I told her I'd kill her if she ever wrote the story. I believe her because I know she believed me.'


The room became silent.


'She's out of it,' Buchanan said.


The major and the captain looked at each other.


Come on, Buchanan thought. Take the bait.


'We'd want all the photographs and the negatives.' Alan shifted his weight on the bed.


The major and the captain turned in his direction, as if they hadn't been aware of him until now, surprised that he'd spoken.


'That's not a problem,' Buchanan said. 'She's already agreed to give them to me. As a gesture of good faith' - he pulled some photographs from an inside pocket of his jacket -'these are the ones she had on her.'


'You honestly think she'll stick to her bargain?' the major asked.


'She's too afraid not to.'


'You certainly must have been convincing.'


'That's my specialty. Being convincing.'


But have I convinced you? Buchanan thought.


'She could make copies of the photographs and create new negatives,' the major said.


'Or hold some back,' the captain added. 'The only way to be sure is to get rid of her.'


Alan squirmed again, then stood from the bed. 'I don't know.' He shook his head, troubled. 'Would that really solve anything? Even if she were terminated, we'd still have to worry that she had copies of her research hidden with friends. There'd be no guarantee that we could find it all. Fear can be an effective motivator. If Buchanan thinks he managed to neutralize the situation without the need for violence, maybe we ought to go along with his suggestion. After all, no matter how much we made her death seem like an accident, there would still be repercussions. Suspicions. Killing her might cause more problems than it solves.'


Inwardly Buchanan sighed. I've got him. He's agreeing. Now all I have to do is.


The major frowned. 'I'll have to talk with the colonel.'


'Of course,' Alan said sarcastically. 'The colonel has the final word. The Agency doesn't count in this. Only you people.'


The major responded flatly, 'We have as much authority as you. The colonel has to be consulted.'


Shit, Buchanan thought. I only got a postponement.


He quickly tried another approach.


'I have something else for you to tell the colonel.'


'Oh?'


'. I'm resigning.'


They stared.


'You were already planning to take me out of operations and use me as an instructor. Why do things halfway? Accept my resignation. If I'm out of the military, I won't be a threat to you.'


'Threat? What do you mean?' the major asked.


'I think that's obvious enough. The real problem here is me.'


The room seemed to shrink.


'I repeat, Captain. What do you mean?' the major asked.


'We wouldn't be in this situation if it hadn't been for what happened to me in Cancun and then in Fort Lauderdale. The operation wouldn't be threatened if I were out of the way. That wasn't a mugger who stabbed me last night. It was someone working for you.'


'That's absurd,' the captain said.


'Using a street weapon so it wouldn't look like a professional hit. Because of the knife, I didn't figure it out right away. No reputable assassin would ever use a blade. Compared to a bullet, it's too uncertain. For that matter, too risky, because you have to get right next to your target. But then I realized that what looked like an amateur killing would be a perfect cover for a professional one. Bailey, the Doyles, me. We'd all be dead. A suspicious coincidence, yes. But each of the deaths would be explainable without any need to drag in a conspiracy theory. And if the reporter had a car accident.'


Everyone became very still.


'All because of the photographs,' Buchanan said. 'The ones that showed you, Major, and you, Captain, and more important, the colonel with me on the yacht in Fort Lauderdale. For me to be exposed wasn't a problem. You knew I'd never implicate anyone. But for you two to have your photograph on the front page of The Washington Post, and in particular for the colonel to be on the front page, that's a different matter. That would lead to the exposure of all sorts of things. You don't have to worry about any of that now. The reporter isn't going to write her story. And even if I hadn't scared her off, the photograph of me with the two of you and the colonel doesn't mean anything if I can't be linked to Scotch and Soda. You don't need to go to the trouble of killing me. I'll do you all a favor and disappear.'


The group seemed frozen.


Finally the major cleared his throat, then looked awkwardly at the woman and finally Alan.


'Come on,' Buchanan said. 'We've got a problem. Let's discuss it.'


'Captain, do you realize what you sound like?' the major asked, uneasy.


'Direct.'


'Try "paranoid".'


'Fine,' Buchanan said. 'Nobody ordered my termination. We'll pretend it was the random act of violence you wanted it to resemble. However you want to play this. It makes no difference to me. Just so you get the point. I'll disappear. That way you've got double protection. Holly McCoy won't write her story. I won't be around to be questioned.'


'To hear you talk like this.' The major frowned. 'I'm glad we did decide to observe you. You've definitely been undercover too long.'


'I think you'd better get some rest,' Alan said. 'You've just been released from the hospital. You've got to be tired.'


The woman added, 'Being stabbed. Injuring your head again. In your place, I'd-'


'How'd you know I hurt my head again? I didn't mention it to anybody.'


'I just assumed.'


'Or you heard it from the man you sent to kill me.'


'Captain, you're obviously distressed. I want you - in fact, I order you - to stay in this room, to try to relax and get some sleep. We'll be back here at nine hundred hours tomorrow morning to continue this conversation. Hopefully, you'll feel less disturbed by then.'


'I honestly don't blame you for trying to protect the mission,' Buchanan said. 'But let's not talk around the problem. Get it out in the open. Now that I've given you a better solution, you don't have to kill me.'


Alan studied Buchanan with concern, then followed the major and the captain somberly out the door.


12


Buchanan's legs felt unsteady as he crossed the room and secured the lock. The strain of the conversation had intensified his headache. He shoved three Tylenol caplets into his mouth and went into the bathroom to drink a glass of water. His mouth was so dry that he drank a second glass. His reflection in the mirror showed dark patches under his eyes. I'm losing it, he thought.


In the bedroom, he awkwardly closed the draperies. His side hurt when he stretched out on the bed. The darkness was soothing.


But his mind wouldn't stop working.


Did I pull it off?


Were they convinced?


He didn't understand why he was so concerned about Holly's safety. He'd met her only a few days ago. In theory, they were antagonists. Most of his troubles were due to her interference. In fact, it could be argued that Jack and Cindy Doyle were dead because of her. But the truth was that Holly McCoy hadn't killed the Doyles. His own people had. Just as they'd killed Bailey. And they'd have killed me, too, if I'd been around when Bailey opened the cooler to look at his money.


So they waited for another chance to get me, a way that wouldn't look suspicious even to a reporter.


Holly McCoy.


Have I grown attracted to her? he wondered. There had been a time when he could have justified anything - the murder of a reporter, anything - for the sake of maintaining an operation's security. Now.


Yes?


Maybe I don't care about the operation any longer. Or maybe.


What?


Maybe I'm becoming a human being.


Yeah, but which human being?


13


'One more time,' Alan said. 'I want to be sure about this.' He drove a rented Pontiac from the Crowne Plaza hotel. Major Putnam sat next to him. Captain Weller leaned forward from the back. 'Do any of you know anything about an order to terminate Buchanan?'


'Absolutely not,' the captain said.


'I received no such instructions,' the major said.


'And I didn't,' Alan said.


'What's this about Jack and Cindy Doyle?' the major asked. 'I thought their deaths were a murder-suicide.'


'So did I,' the captain said. 'Buchanan caught me totally off-balance when he said they were a double murder. I don't know anything about orders to terminate them.'


'Who tried to kill Buchanan?' Alan asked.


'An attempted mugging is still the most logical explanation,' the major said.


'In the middle of a crowd outside a restaurant?' Alan gripped the steering wheel harder. 'A pickpocket, sure. But I never heard of a pickpocket who drew attention to himself by stabbing the guy he was trying to lift a wallet from.'


'How about some weirdo who gets his kicks out of stabbing people in public?' the captain asked.


'That makes more sense.' Alan turned onto Canal Street, squinting at headlights. 'It's crazy, but it makes sense.'


'The thing is, Buchanan believes we did it,' the major said. 'And that's just as crazy.'


'But do you think he really believes it?' the captain asked. 'He's an actor. He says things for effect. He can be very convincing.'


'He certainly convinced me,' Alan said.


'But why would he lie?' the major asked.


'To create a smoke screen. To confuse us and divert our attention from the reporter.'


'Why?' the major repeated.


'Buchanan might be right that killing the reporter would cause more problems than it solves,' Alan said. 'If she's genuinely intimidated and she doesn't write the story, we've accomplished our purpose.'


'If. I keep hearing a lot of ifs.'


'I agree with Buchanan,' the captain said. 'I think it's better if we do nothing at this point and just sweat it out.'


'On that score, the colonel's opinion is the only one that matters,' the major said.


They drove in silence.


'We still haven't.' Alan scowled at the bright lights of traffic.


'What?' the captain asked.


'Did someone try to kill Buchanan? Not a whacko but a professional following orders. And if we didn't give the orders, who did?'


14


The rule was, if a contact didn't show up at an agreed place on schedule and if no arrangements had been made for an alternate time and place for a meeting, you returned to the rendezvous site twenty-four hours later. With luck, whatever had prevented the contact from coming to the meeting would no longer be an obstacle. But if the contact didn't show up the second time.


Buchanan didn't want to think about it. He made his way through the French Quarter. Crowded, narrow streets. Dixieland. The blues. Dancing on the sidewalk. Commotion. But no costumes. This time, with no masks to hide people's faces, Buchanan would have a much better chance to learn if he was being followed. Last time, he'd been conspicuous because he hadn't been wearing a costume. Now, just one of many people in street clothes, he would have a much better chance of blending with a crowd, slipping down an alley, and evading anyone who did try to follow.


With a sense of d‚ja vu that made him wince from the memory of when the knife had entered his side, he passed the shadows of Jackson Square, studied Decatur Street, and once more crossed toward Cafe du Monde. Again, the restaurant was busy, although not as much as on Halloween. To make sure that the crowd didn't prevent him from entering, he'd taken care to arrive early, at ten-fifteen rather than the scheduled time of eleven when he had last been here with Juana six years ago.


He festered with impatience. Never showing it, he waited his turn and was escorted by a waiter past pillars through the noise of the crowd to a seat at a small, circular, white-topped table surrounded by similar, busy tables at the back in a corner. By chance, the table was in exactly the spot he would have chosen to give him an effective view of the entrance.


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. Ten-forty. Soon, he thought. Soon.


His headache made him sick again. When the waiter came to take his order, he asked for the specialty: caf‚ 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 here. 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?


15


He packed his bag and dropped a signed check-out form on the bed. At three 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 three 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 back seat, 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 bed in the hotel room beside the signed check-out 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 needed to carry 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.


16


'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 trans-Atlantic 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.'


NINE


1


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 mid-morning 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.


He ate take-out food while he drove, hamburgers, french fries, po'boys, tacos, anything to give him fuel, washing it down with plenty of Coca Cola, relying on the soft drink's calories and caffeine to maintain his energy. Three times, he pulled off the busy highway and napped at a rest stop. He parked the rented Taurus near the toilet facilities so that the noisy coming and going of vehicles and travelers would prevent him from sleeping too deeply, for he knew that if he did truly sleep, he wouldn't waken until the next day.


He had to keep moving. He had to get to San Antonio and begin the urgent process of finding out what had happened to Juana. Why had she failed to meet him? What trouble had caught up to her? Despite his pain and confusion, he had sufficient presence of mind to ask himself if he were overreacting. A promise made six years ago to a woman whom he hadn't seen since then. A plea for help in the form of a cryptic postcard.


Maybe the postcard didn't mean what he thought. Did it make sense for Juana to contact him after so long a time? And why him? Wasn't there anyone else whom she could ask for help?


What made him the logical choice?


He didn't have answers. But this much he knew for certain. Something had happened to him.


Something terrifying.


He tried to establish when it had begun. Perhaps when he'd been shot in Cancun, or when he'd injured his head while he made his escape, swimming across the channel. Perhaps when he'd been tortured in Merida and had struck his head on the concrete floor. Or possibly later when he'd been stabbed and had again struck his head.


The more he considered those possibilities, the less he thought that they were the source of his fear, however. No doubt they were contributing factors. But as he analyzed the past weeks, as he replayed his various traumas, one incident disturbed him more than any.


The trauma had not been physical. It had been mental.


It threatened his sense of identity.


Or rather multiple identities. During the past eight years, he had been more than two hundred people. On some days, he had impersonated as many as six different people while attempting to recruit a series of contacts. During the past two weeks, he'd been confused with Jim Crawford and had identified with Peter Lang while he'd impersonated Ed Potter and Victor Grant and Don Colton and.


Brendan Buchanan.


That was the trouble. After disposing of Victor Grant, he'd expected to be given yet another identity. But at the Alexandria apartment, Alan had told him that there wouldn't be a new identity, that he was being transferred from field operations, that he would have to be.


Himself.


But who the hell was that? He hadn't been Brendan Buchanan for so long that he didn't know who on earth Brendan Buchanan was. On a superficial level, he didn't know such basics as how he liked to dress or what he liked to eat. On the deepest level, he was totally out of touch with himself. He was an actor who'd so immersed himself in his roles that when his roles were taken away from him he became a vacuum.


His profession wasn't only what he did. It defined what he was. He was nothing without a role to play, and he realized now how brutally the realization had struck him that he couldn't be Brendan Buchanan for the rest of his life. Thus, to escape being Brendan Buchanan, he would become Peter Lang. He would hunt for the most important person in Peter Lang's world. And possibly in his own world, for the more he thought about it, the more he wondered how positively his life would have changed if he had stayed with Juana.


I liked Peter Lang, he thought.


And Peter Lang had been in love with Juana.


2


Past Houston, he used a pay phone outside a truck stop. It fascinated and disturbed him that the only person he cared about from Brendan Buchanan's world was Holly McCoy. He'd known her only a few days. She was a threat to him. And yet he had an irresistible urge to protect her, to insure that she escaped the danger she had created for herself because she'd investigated him. He thought he had convinced the major, the captain, and Alan of her intention not to pursue the story. There was a strong chance they would leave her alone. But what about the colonel? Would the colonel agree with their recommend-ation?


Buchanan hadn't been lying when he'd told them that Holly had flown back to Washington, and he hadn't been lying when he'd said that he'd made Holly frightened enough not to pursue the story. Still he had to reinforce her resolve. Assuming that her phones would be tapped, he'd told her that he would use the name Mike Hamilton if he needed to leave a message on her answering machine or with someone at The Washington Post. As it happened, she was at the newspaper when he called there.


'How are you?'


'Wondering if I made a mistake,' Holly answered.


'It wasn't a mistake, believe me.'


'What about your negotiations? Did they work?'


'I don't know yet'


'Oh.'


'Yes. Oh. Did you send them what you promised?'


'. Not yet.'


'Do it.'


'It's just that. It's such good material. I hate to.'


'Do it,' Buchanan repeated. 'Don't make them angry.'


'But giving up the story makes me feel like a coward.'


'There were plenty of times when I did things rather than think of myself as a coward. Now those things don't seem worth it. I have to keep on the move. The best advice I can give you is.' He wanted to say something reassuring but couldn't think of anything. 'Stop worrying about bravery and cowardice. Follow your common sense.'


He hung up, left the pay phone, got quickly into the rented Taurus, and returned to the busy highway, squinting from the painful sunlight that now was low in the west ahead of him. Even the Ray-Bans he'd bought at noon in Beaumont didn't keep the sun's glare from feeling as if a red-hot spike had been driven through each eye and into his skull.


Follow your common sense?


You're good at giving advice. You don't seem to want to take it, though.


3


Shortly after nine p.m., he drove from the low, grassy, often wooded, rolling plains of eastern Texas and entered the lights of San Antonio. Six years ago, when he'd been researching the character of Peter Lang, he'd spent several weeks here so he wouldn't be ignorant about his fictional character's home town. He'd done the usual touristy things like visiting the Alamo (its name was a Spanish word, he learned, which meant 'cottonwood tree') as well as the restored Spanish Governor's Palace, the San Jose Mission, and La Villita or The Little Village, a reconstructed section of the original, eighteenth-century Spanish settlement. He spent a lot of time at Riverwalk, the Spanish-motif shopping area along the landscaped banks of the San Antonio River.


But he'd also spent a lot of time in the suburbs, in one of which -Castle Hills - Juana's parents had lived. Juana had used a cover name so that an enemy could not have found out who her parents were and gone to San Antonio to question them about her supposed husband. There'd been no need and in fact it would have been disruptive for Buchanan to meet her parents. He knew where they lived, however, and he headed straight toward their home, making a few mistakes in direction but surprising himself by how much he remembered from his previous visit there.


Juana's parents had a two-story brick and shingled house fronted by a well-tended lawn that had sheltering oak trees. When Buchanan parked the rented Taurus at the curb, he saw that lights were on in what he gathered was the living room. He got out of the car, locked it, and studied his reflection that a street light cast on the driver's side window. His rugged face looked tired, but after he combed his hair and straightened his clothes, he at least appeared neat and respectable. He was still wearing the brown sport coat that he had taken from Ted's room back in New Orleans. Slightly too large for him although not unbecomingly so, it had the advantage of concealing the handgun that he'd tucked behind his belt at his spine before he got out of the Taurus.


He glanced both ways along the street, out of habit watching the shadows for any sign that the house was under surveillance. If Juana were in trouble as the postcard and her failure to meet him suggested, if she were on the run - which would explain why she hadn't shown up at Caf‚ du Monde - there was a possibility that her enemies would watch her parents in case she contacted them in person or telephoned and inadvertently revealed where she was. The Juana who'd been in the military would never have let anyone know the name and location of her parents. But a great deal could have happened in the intervening six years. She might have foolishly trusted someone enough to give that person information that was now being used against her, although being foolish had never been one of Juana's characteristics.


Except maybe for falling in love with Peter Lang.


The street suggested no threat. There weren't any vehicles parked on this block. No one was loitering at a corner, pretending to wait for a bus. Lights in the other houses revealed what appeared to be normal family activity. Someone might have been hiding in bushes, of course, although in this neighborhood where everybody seemed to take pride, a prowler on long-term surveillance wouldn't be able to hide easily, especially from the German shepherd that a man was walking on a leash along the opposite sidewalk. Still, that was assuming the man with the dog was not himself on surveillance.


Buchanan took just a few seconds to register all this. From someone else's point of view, he would have seemed merely a visitor who'd paused to comb his hair before walking up to the house. The night was mild, with the fallen-leaf fragrance of autumn. As he stopped on the brick porch and pushed a button, he heard not only the doorbell but the muted sound of a laughtrack on a television sitcom. Then he heard footsteps on a hardwood floor, and a shadow appeared at the window of the front door.


A light came on above him. He saw an Hispanic woman - in her late fifties, with shoulder-length, black hair and an appealing oval face - peer out at him. Her intense, dark eyes suggested intelligence and perception. They reminded him of Juana, although he didn't know for sure that this woman was Juana's mother. He had never met her parents. There was no name on the mailbox or beneath the doorbell. Juana's parents might have moved during the past six years. They might even have died. When he arrived in San Antonio, Buchanan had been tempted to check a phone book to see if they still lived at this address, but by then he was so anxious to reach the house that he hadn't wanted to waste even a minute. He would know soon enough, he'd told himself.


An amateur might have phoned from New Orleans, and if he managed to contact Juana's parents, that amateur might have tried to elicit information from them about whether Juana was in trouble. If so, he would have failed, or the information he received would have been suspect. Most people were gullible, but even a fool tended to hold back when confronted by personal questions from a stranger using a telephone, no matter how good that stranger's cover story was. A telephone was a lazy operative's way of doing research. Whenever possible, face-to-face contact was the best method of obtaining information, and when the military had transferred Buchanan for training at the CIA's Farm in Virginia, Buchanan had quickly acquired a reputation as being skilled at, what was called in the trade, elicitation. His instructor's favorite assignment had been to send his students into various local bars during Happy Hour. The students were to strike up conversations with strangers, and in the course of an hour, they had to gain the trust of those strangers to such a degree that each stranger would reveal the day, month, and year of his birth as well as his social-security number. Experience had proved to the instructor that such personal information was almost impossible to learn in a first-time encounter. How could you invent a casual question that would prompt someone you'd never met to blurt out his social-security number? More than likely, your question would result in suspicion rather than information. All of the students in the class had failed. Except for Buchanan.


The Hispanic woman unlocked the door and opened it, although she didn't release the security chain. Speaking through the five-inch gap in the door, she looked puzzled. 'Yes?'


'Se¤ora Mendez?


'Si.'


'Perdone. I know it's late. My name's Jeff Walker, and I'm a friend of your daughter.' Buchanan used the Spanish he'd learned at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California when he'd been preparing for his mission into Mexico. 'I haven't seen her in several years, and I don't know where she lives. I'm visiting town for a couple of days, and. Well, I hoped that she was around. Can you tell me where to find her?'


Juana's mother studied him with suspicion. However, her suspicion seemed tempered by an appreciation that he was using Spanish. Juana had told him that while her parents were bilingual, they much preferred speaking Spanish and they felt slighted when whites whom they knew spoke Spanish forced them to speak English.


'Conoce a mi hija?'


'Si,' Buchanan continued in Spanish. 'I know your Juana. We were in the military together. I knew her when she was stationed here at Fort Sam Houston.' That had been one of Juana's cover assignments. Although she had worked with Army Intelligence and was affiliated with Special Forces at Fort Bragg, her ostensible assignment had been with the 5th Army headquarters here in San Antonio. 'We got along real well. Several times we went out together. I guess you could say. Well, we were close. I wish I'd kept in touch with her. But I was overseas for a while and. I'd sure like the chance to say hello.'


Juana's mother continued to study him with suspicion. Buchanan was certain that if he hadn't been speaking Spanish and if he hadn't mentioned Fort Sam Houston, she wouldn't have listened to him this long. He needed something else to establish his credibility. 'Do you still have that dog? The golden retriever? What was his name? Pepe. Yeah. Juana sure loved that dog. When she wasn't talking about baseball, she was talking about him. Said she liked to take Pepe out for a run along the river when she wasn't on duty.'


The mother's suspicion began to dissolve. 'No.'


'I beg your pardon?'


'The dog. Pepe. He died last year.'


'Oh. I'm sorry to hear that, Se¤ora Mendez. Losing a pet can be like.Juana must have taken it hard.'


'You say your name is Jeff Walker?'


'That's right.' Buchanan made sure to stand straight, as if his character retained habits of bearing from when he'd been in the military.


'I don't remember her mentioning you.'


'Well, six years is a while ago. Juana certainly told me a lot about you. The way I hear it, you make the best chicken fajitas in town.'


The mother smiled slightly. 'Those were always Juana's favorite.' The smile became a frown. 'I would remember you if I'd met you before. Why didn't Juana ever bring you to the house?'


I've got another 'why', Buchanan thought with growing concern. Why so many questions? What the hell's going on?


4


Two blocks along the street, a small, gray van was parked in front of a house with a FOR SALE sign on the lawn. The van had been parked there for several days, but the neighbors had not been troubled by its presence. On the contrary, they felt reassured because the van's driver, a private detective, had paid a visit to everyone who lived on that block and had explained that recent vandalism in the neighborhood had prompted a security firm with clients in the area to dispatch a guard to keep a watch on several homes in the district, particularly the vacant house, which seemed a natural target for vandals. If the neighbors had telephoned the number on the business card that they were given, a professional-sounding secretary would have told them that what the private detective had said was correct. The man did work for the firm. What the secretary would not have said, of course, was that she was speaking from an almost empty, one-room, downtown office, and that the security firm had not existed two weeks ago.


The private detective's name was Duncan Bradley. He was twenty-eight years old. Tall and slim, he almost always wore sneakers and a cotton sweat suit as if he expected at any moment to play basketball, his favorite leisure activity. He preferred so informal an outfit because it was comfortable during lengthy stakeouts, and this particular stakeout - already lengthy - promised to become even longer.


He and his partner were working twelve-hour shifts, which meant that the van, the windows of which were shielded so that no one could see in, had to be equipped with cooking facilities (a microwave) and toilet facilities (a porta-potty). The cramped working conditions also meant that the van had needed to be customized in order to comfortably accommodate Duncan Bradley's six-foot-eight-inch frame. Thus all the seats had been removed from the back and replaced by an extra-long mattress clamped to a plank and tilted upward on a fifteen-degree angle so that Duncan, who constantly lay upon it, didn't need to strain his neck by his persistent need to keep looking up.


What he looked at was the monitor for a miniature television camera that projected from the van's roof and was hidden by the cowling of a fake air-vent. This camera, a version of the type used in assault helicopters, had considerable magnification ability so that it was able to show the license plate of a car parked two blocks farther along the street, a blue Ford Taurus with Louisiana license plates. This camera also had state-of-the-art, night-vision capability, and thus, although the street was for the most part in shadow, Duncan had no trouble seeing the green-tinted image of a man who got out of the Taurus, combed his hair, glanced at the neighborhood as if admiring it, and then walked toward the house. The man was Caucasian, about five-foot-eleven, in his middle thirties. He was well-built but not dramatically muscular. He was dressed casually, unremarkably. His hair was of moderate length, neither long nor short. His features were ragged but not severe, just as he was good-looking, handsome but not in a way that attracted attention.


'This is November second,' Duncan said into a tape recorder. 'It's nine-thirty at night. I'm still in my surveillance vehicle down the street from the target area. A man just showed up at the house.' Duncan proceeded to describe the car and its driver, including the Louisiana license number. 'He's not too tall, not too short. A little of this, a little of that, not too much of one thing or another. Could be something, could be nothing. I'm monitoring audio surveillance.'


Duncan lowered the tape recorder and turned up the volume on an audio receiver, then adjusted the ear phones he was wearing. The receiver corresponded with several miniature microphone-transmitter units that Duncan had hidden in the phones and light switches of every room in the target house. The units were tapped into the house's electrical system and thus had a permanent source of power. They were programmed to transmit on an FM band that wasn't used in San Antonio, and hence the transmission wouldn't interfere with television or radio reception in the house and possibly make the occupants suspicious.


The day he'd been given this assignment, Duncan had waited until the targets were both out of the house. They'd made things easy for him by doing so after supper when the neighborhood was dark. Followed by Duncan's partner, the targets had driven to a shopping mall, and if they'd decided to return sooner than anticipated, Duncan's partner had a cellular phone with which he could have transmitted a warning beep to the pager that Duncan wore. Of course, Duncan had not depended on the good fortune that the targets had left the house unattended while it was dark. If necessary, he could have entered the unoccupied house during the daylight by posing as an employee of the lawn-care company that the targets hired to maintain their property. No neighbor would have thought it unusual for a man wearing a lawn-care uniform and carrying an insect-spray cannister the size of a fire extinguisher to check the bushes at the side of the house and then to proceed intently around to the back. Duncan had invaded the house through a patio door, picking its lock in fifteen seconds, installing all the microphones within forty minutes.


In the van, dials on the receiver's console allowed him to adjust the sound level from each transmitter. The equipment also permitted Duncan to record the sound from each transmitter onto separate tapes. He hadn't been doing much recording, however. In the two weeks since he'd had this assignment, he'd heard nothing but what seemed to be normal household conversation. If the occupants were using a private code to communicate secret information, Duncan had detected no indication of it. Phone calls had been the usual neighborhood chit-chat. Dinner talk had mostly been about the husband's extremely successful car-repair business. At night, the couple watched a lot of television. They hadn't had sex as long as Duncan had been listening.


For most of this evening, Duncan had been listening to the laughtrack on a string of TV situation comedies. Now, when he heard the doorbell and the husband telling the wife to answer it, he activated a bank of tape recorders and lowered the volume of the transmitter in the living room, at the same time raising the volume of the transmitter in the front hallway.


Duncan understood Spanish. It was one of the reasons that he'd been assigned to this house, and right from the start of the conversation, he felt charged. Because right from the start, the stranger, who said his name was Jeff Walker, asked about Juana Mendez, and baby, we are in business now, Duncan thought. We are finally getting some action. While he eagerly listened and adjusted dials and made sure that the tape machines were recording every word, he simultaneously pushed a button on his cellular telephone. The number he needed to call had been programmed into the phone.


'You know my daughter?' Mrs Mendez was saying in Spanish.


The man who called himself Jeff Walker was explaining that he'd known Juana in the military, at Fort Sam Houston.


With the cellular phone pressed against his left ear, Duncan heard it buzz.


The man who called himself Jeff Walker was talking about a dog that Juana Mendez had owned. Whoever this guy was, he certainly seemed to know her.


The cellular phone buzzed a second time.


Now Jeff Walker was carrying on about how Juana had bragged about her mother's chicken fajitas.


You're laying it on a bit thick, aren't you, buddy? Duncan thought.


Abruptly someone answered the phone, a smooth male voice absorbing the cellular static. 'Tucker here.'


'This is Bradley. I think we've got ignition.'


5


'Why didn't Juana bring me to the house?' Continuing to use Spanish, Buchanan repeated the question that Juana's mother had asked him. 'You know, I wondered that myself. I think it was because she wasn't sure if you and your husband would approve.'


Buchanan was taking a big chance here, but he had to do something to distract her from her suspicion. Something was wrong, and he didn't know what, but he thought if he put her on the defensive about one thing, she might open up about other things.


'Why wouldn't we approve?' Juana's mother asked. Her dark eyes flashed with barely controlled indignation. 'Because you're white? That's crazy. Half my husband's employees are white. Many of Juana's high-school friends were white. Juana knows we're not prejudiced.'


'I'm sorry. That isn't what I meant. I didn't intend to insult you. Juana told me - in fact she emphasized - that you didn't have any objection if she dated someone who wasn't Hispanic.'


'Then why wouldn't we have approved of you?' Juana's mother's dark eyes flashed again.


'Because I'm not Catholic.'


'. Oh.' The woman's voice dropped.


'Juana said you'd told her many times that was one thing you expected of her. that if she got serious about a man, he would have to be a Catholic. because you wanted to be certain that your grandchildren would be raised in the Church.'


'Yes.' Juana's mother swallowed. 'That is true. I told her that often. Apparently you do know her well.'


In the background, a man's gruff voice interrupted. 'Anita, who are you talking to? What's taking you so long?'


Juana's mother glanced down the hallway toward the entrance to the living room. 'Wait here,' she told Buchanan and closed the door.


Feeling exposed, Buchanan heard muffled words.


Juana's mother returned. 'Please, come in.'


She didn't sound happy about the invitation, though, and she didn't look happy as she locked the door behind them and escorted Buchanan into the living room.


It was connected via an archway to the kitchen, and immediately Buchanan smelled the lingering fragrance of oil, spices, onions, and peppers from dinner. The room had too much furniture, mostly padded chairs and various wooden tables. A crucifix hung on the wall. A short, heavy-chested, fiftyish man with pitch-black hair and darker eyes than his wife sat in an Easy-Boy recliner. His face was round but craggy. He wore work shoes and a blue coverall that had a patch -MENDEZ MECHANICS. Buchanan remembered that Juana had told him about the six garages her father owned throughout the city. The man was smoking a cigar and holding a bottle of Corona beer.


'Who are you?' It was difficult to hear him because of the laughter from the television.


'As I told your wife, my name is.'


'Yes. Jeff Walker. Who are you?'


Buchanan frowned. 'I'm sorry. I don't understand.'


Juana's mother fidgeted.


'I'm a friend of your.daughter,' Buchanan said.


'So you claim.' The man looked nervous. 'When is her birthday?'


'Why on earth would.?'


'Just answer the question. If you're as good a friend as you say, you'll know when she has her birthday.'


'Well?'


'As I recall, it's in May. The tenth.' Buchanan remembered it because six years previously he and Juana had started working together in May. Under the pretense of being husband and wife in New Orleans, they'd made a big deal about her birthday on the tenth.


'Anybody could look that up in a file. Does she have any allergies?'


'Se¤or Mendez, what's this about? I haven't seen her in several years. It's very hard to remember if.'


'That's what I thought.'


'But I recall she had a problem with cilantro. That always surprised me, her being allergic to a herb that's used so often in Hispanic cooking.'


'Birth marks?'


'This is.'


'Answer the question.'


'There's a scar on the back of her right leg, up high, near her hip. She said she got it when she was a kid, climbing over a barbed-wire fence. What's next? Are you going to ask me how I saw the scar? I think I made a mistake. I think I shouldn't have come here. I think I should have gone to some of Juana's friends to see if they knew where I could find her.'


As Buchanan turned toward the door, Juana's mother said sharply, 'Pedro.'


'Wait,' the father said. 'Please. If you're truly a friend of my daughter, stay.'


Buchanan studied him, then nodded.


'I asked you those question because.' Pedro seemed in turmoil. 'You're the fourth friend of Juana to ask where she is in the past two weeks.'


Buchanan didn't show his surprise. 'The fourth.?'


'Is she in trouble?' Anita's voice was taut with anxiety.


'Like you, each of them was white,' Pedro said. 'Each was male. Each hadn't seen her in several years. But unlike you, they didn't have any personal knowledge about her. One of them claimed that he'd served with her at Fort Bragg. But Juana was never assigned to Fort Bragg.'


That was wrong, Buchanan knew. Although Juana's cover military assignment had been at Fort Sam Houston, her actual assignment had been through Fort Bragg. But her parents would never have known that because Juana would never have broken cover to tell them. So they naturally thought that the man who claimed to be Juana's friend was lying when he claimed that he'd known Juana at Bragg. Quite the contrary: the man was telling a version of the truth. Whoever he was, he knew Juana's background in detail. But he had made a mistake in assuming that her parents would also know it.


Juana's father continued, 'Another supposed friend claimed that he had known Juana at college here in San Antonio. When I asked which one, he looked confused. He didn't seem to know that she had transferred from Our Lady of the Lake University to St Mary's University. Anyone who knew her well would have known that information.'


Buchanan mentally agreed. Somebody had fucked up and skimmed through her file instead of reading it in detail.


'The third supposed friend,' Pedro said, 'claimed that, like you, he had dated her when they worked together here at Fort Sam Houston, but when we asked why we had never met him since Juana brought most of her boyfriends to see us, he didn't have an explanation. At least, you did, just as you actually seem to know personal things about her. So I will ask you again. Jeff Walker. is our daughter in trouble?'


Juana's mother waited, clutching the sides of her dress.


Buchanan had a difficult, quick decision to make. Pedro was inviting him into their confidence. Or maybe Pedro was offering bait. If Buchanan admitted his true intentions, Pedro might very well suspect that Buchanan was yet another impersonator sent by Juana's enemies to find her.


He decided to take the gamble. 'I think so.'


Pedro exhaled as if he were finally hearing what he wanted, even though the knowledge dismayed him.


'I knew it,' Juana's mother said. 'What kind of trouble? Tell us. We've been worried to death about.'


'Anita, please, no talk about death.' Pedro squinted toward Buchanan and repeated the question that his wife had asked. 'What kind of trouble?'


'If I knew, I wouldn't be here,' Buchanan said. 'Last week, I received a message that she needed to see me. The message was vague, as if she didn't want anyone else to read it and figure out what she was telling me. But I could figure it out. She desperately needed help. There's a place in New Orleans that was special to us. Without mentioning it, she asked me. begged me, really. to meet her there at the same time and date we'd last been there. That would have been at eleven p.m. on Halloween. But she didn't show up that night or the night after. Obviously something's wrong. That's why I came here. Because you were the only people I could think of to try to establish contact with her. I figured that you of all people would have some idea what was going on.'


Neither Pedro nor Anita said anything.


Buchanan gave them time.


'No,' Anita said.


Buchanan gave them more time.


'We don't know anything,' Anita said. 'Except that we've been worried because she hasn't been behaving normally.'


'How?'


'We haven't heard from her in nine months. Usually, even when she's on the road, she phones at least once a week. She did say she'd be away for a while. But nine months?'


'What does she do for a living?'


Pedro and Anita looked uncertain.


'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 were trying to find Juana and if that enemy were impatient enough to send three different men to ask Juana's parents about where she could be found, might not that enemy have gone farther 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 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 plug-lever on the sink. '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 note pad 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 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.'


6


'You'd better get here pronto,' Duncan Bradley said into his cellular phone while he listened to the transmissions 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.'


'He's getting in his car,' Duncan emphasized.


'No problem. The license number you gave me.'


'What about it?'


'I accessed the Louisiana motor-vehicles computer. The Taurus belongs to a New Orleans car-rental agency.'


'That doesn't tell us much,' Duncan said.


'There's more. I phoned the agency. Pretended to be a state trooper. Said there'd been an accident. Wanted to know who'd rented the car.'


'And?'


'Brendan Buchanan. That's the name on the rental agreement.'


Tucker's headlights loomed larger on the rearview television screen.


On the frontview screen, two blocks away, the Taurus's lights came on. The car pulled away.


With a flash, Tucker's Jeep Cherokee passed the van. Duncan pivoted his gaze from the night-vision television image and smiled toward the front windshield and the swiftly receding taillights of Tucker's jeep.


'See, I told you,' Tucker said through the cellular phone. 'No sweat. I'm on him. No headlights pulling away from the curb behind him. Nothing to make him suspicious.'


'Brendan Buchanan?' Duncan wondered. 'Who the hell is Brendan Buchanan? And what's his connection with the woman?'


'The head office is checking on him.' Tucker's taillights diminished to red specks as he followed the even more minute specks of the Taurus. 'Meantime, I'll find out where he's staying. We'll pay him a visit. We'll find out all we need to know about Brendan Buchanan.'


7


A microphone-transmitter required something to receive its broadcast. Depending on the strength of the transmitter, the receiver might be as far away as a mile. But practical considerations - static-producing electrical equipment in the area, for example - usually required that the receiver be much closer to the source. As well, it was useful for the person monitoring the reception to maintain visual surveillance on the target area. Thus the odds were, Buchanan concluded, that the receiver was in the neighborhood. possibly in a building, although in this respectable, single-family-dwelling area it would have been difficult for a surveillance team to take over a house. more likely in a vehicle of some sort. But there weren't any other cars parked on the street in this block. Buchanan had noticed that when he'd arrived, and he checked again as he crossed the lawn toward his rented car.


He turned to glare at Pedro Mendez, who continued to stand on his front porch, scowling at Buchanan.


Damned good, Pedro, Buchanan thought. You missed your calling. You could have been an actor.


Pretending to be furious, Buchanan spun toward his Taurus. As he rounded it to unlock the driver's side, he glanced both ways along the street, and there it was, some kind of vehicle parked two blocks away. He hadn't noticed it before because the vehicle, small down there, was in shadows between widely spaced street lights. The only reason he noticed it now was that the headlights of an approaching car exposed it.


I think it's time to pay somebody a visit, Buchanan thought as he started the Taurus, turned on its lights, and drove away. The headlights of the approaching car came up behind him, aggravating his headache.


Somebody wants to find Juana badly enough that they bug the house. But they still can't be sure Juana didn't get a message to her parents in a way that the microphones couldn't detect, so whoever wants to find Juana becomes impatient and sends somebody around to the house to pretend they know Juana and ask where she is. No success. They send somebody else. Nothing. So they send yet another.


Does that make sense? Buchanan wondered. They must have realized that three old friends coming around in two weeks would make Juana's parents suspicious. Then why would-?


Yes, Buchanan thought. If Juana is in touch with her parents, whoever is after her wants her to know that her parents are being watched. They want to make Juana nervous about her parents. They want to threaten her by implying a threat against her parents. They hope that'll force her to come out of hiding.


And now that I showed up, now that the surveillance unit knows there's a wild card, they might get nervous enough to stop being patient and have a long, forceful chat with Juana's parents. I have to let Pedro and Anita know they're in danger.


And what about me? Buchanan thought as he steered around a corner. Whoever's after Juana will want to talk to a stranger who suddenly shows up and asks the same questions they did.


Buchanan steered around another corner.


The headlights behind him kept following.


My, my, Buchanan thought.


8


Falls Church, Virginia.


The colonel had chosen a motel on the edge of town, using a pay phone to reserve a room under a pseudonym. At eleven p.m., after he'd used an electronic scanner to make sure that the room was free of microphones, his three associates arrived, their clothes speckled with water from the dank November rain that had greeted them at Washington National Airport following their flight from New Orleans.


All of them looked tired, even Captain Weller who normally exuded sexual vitality. Her blonde hair looked stringy, her blouse wrinkled. She took off her jacket, slumped on the motel room's sofa, and toed off her high-heeled shoes. Major Putnam and Alan had haggard, red cheeks, presumably from fatigue combined with the dehydration that occurs on aircraft and the further dehydrating effect of alcohol.


'Can we get some coffee?' Captain Weller asked.


'Over there,' the colonel said flatly. 'The carafe on the tray beside the phone.' In contrast with his visitors, the colonel looked fit and alert, standing as straight and attentively as ever. He'd shaved and showered before he'd arrived, partly to keep himself fresh, partly to appear more energized than his companions. His clothes, too, were fresh: shined Bally loafers, pressed gray slacks, a starched white shirt, a newly purchased, red-striped tie, and a double-breasted, blue blazer. The effect was to make his tall, trim body suggest the military, even though he did not wear military clothing.


'Oh.' Captain Weller glanced toward the carafe on the tray beside the phone. She and Major Putnam, who slumped on a chair beside the television, did not wear military clothing either. 'Right. I didn't notice it when I came in.'


The colonel's eyes narrowed as if to imply that she had been failing to notice a lot of things.


Alan, the only civilian in the room, loosened his rumpled tie, unbuttoned the top of his wrinkled shirt, and walked over to the coffee, pouring a cup. Everyone in the room looked surprised when he carried the cup over to Captain Weller and then returned to pour another cup, blowing steam from it, sipping. 'What are we doing here? Couldn't this have waited until the morning? I'm dead on my feet, not to mention I've got a wife and kids who haven't seen me in-'


The colonel's flint-and-steel voice interrupted, 'I want a thorough update. No more of your hints and guesses that you don't feel comfortable talking about because you don't trust the security of the phones.'


'Hey,' Alan said, 'if we'd been given portable scramblers, I'd talk on phones all you wanted, but once burned, twice shy, Colonel. In this case, we need extra-tight security.'


'I couldn't agree more.' The colonel stood straighter. Rain pelted against the window, making the dismal room even less agreeable. 'That's why I ordered you to be here right now instead of at home in bed with your wife.'


Alan's expression hardened. 'Ordered, Colonel?'


'Somebody tell me what's going on.' The colonel's voice became more flinty. 'Major, you've been unusually silent so far.'


'A lot of it you already know.' The major rubbed the back of his neck. 'In New Orleans, we went to meet Buchanan at his hotel room. The arrangement was to be there at nine-hundred hours. He didn't respond when we knocked. After we tried several times, we asked a maid to unlock the door. The day before, he'd been released from the hospital. Maybe he'd fainted or something. What we found was his room key, a signed check-out form. obviously he didn't want the hotel to start a search for him. and this note addressed to Alan.'


The colonel took the note and scanned it.


'So he says he's going to do us a favor by dropping out of sight. That way, he's an invisible man, and the reporter from the Post can't verify her story if she pursues it.'


'That seems to be the idea,' the major said.


'And how do you feel about this?' The colonel scowled.


'Hell, I don't know,' the major said. 'This is all out of hand. Everything's so confused. Maybe he's right.'


'Damn it, have you forgotten that you're an officer in the United States Army?'


The major straightened with controlled indignation. 'No, sir, I definitely have not.'


'Then why must I remind you that Captain Buchanan is absent without permission? A deserter. Our operatives can't just decide to quit and go off on their own, especially when they know as much as Buchanan does. We'd have chaos, a security nightmare. I can see I haven't been supervising you closely enough. What this assignment requires is more discipline, more-'


It was Alan's turn to interrupt, 'No, what this assignment needs is for everybody to remember who's an officer in the United States Army.' He set down his coffee cup with such force that liquid splashed over the side. 'That's where this assignment went wrong in the first place, with military personnel doing work that's supposed to be done by civilians. You've been impersonating civilians so long you don't know the difference.'


'By "civilians," you mean the Agency.'


'Obviously.'


'Well, if the Agency had been doing its job, it wouldn't have needed to call on us, would it?' the colonel said. 'During the eighties, your people got so stuck on gadgets and satellites you forgot it took operatives on site to get the truly useful information. So after you screwed up enough times. Iran, Iraq, the old USSR. even the Soviet collapse caught you by surprise. you decided you needed a team of on-line, can-do personnel to pull your asses out of the fire. Us.'


'Not my ass,' Alan said. 'I've never been a fan of gadgets. It wasn't my fault that-'


'The truth is,' the colonel said, 'when the Cold War ended, your people realized you'd be out of a job if you didn't find something else to do. But the trouble is, all the jobs that needed to be done, like stomping out Third-World drug lords, required more risks than you wanted to take. So you asked us to take the risk. After all, the reason there hasn't been more success against the drug lords is you've been using the top men as informants in exchange for giving them immunity. It's kind of tough to go after people you've been chummy with. So you ask us to go after them and do it in such a way that they don't realize you're the ones who turned against them.'


'Hey,' Alan said, 'it's not one of my people who suddenly thinks he's a free spirit and drops out of sight.'


'Captain Buchanan wouldn't have been able to drop out of sight,' the colonel said, 'if your people had kept proper surveillance on the hotel.'


'It wasn't my people who were put in charge of watching that hotel,' Alan said. 'If this had been turned over to me. This is a military screwup all the way. Soldiers don't have any business doing-'


'That's enough,' the colonel said. 'Your opinion is no longer required?


'But-'


'That is all.' The colonel swung toward the major and the captain, who looked shocked by the sudden argument they'd witnessed. 'What do we do about Buchanan?'


Captain Weller cleared her throat. 'I phoned his credit-card company and claimed that he was my husband, that his card had been stolen. I expected that maybe he'd have bought a plane ticket. I was wrong. The credit-card company told me someone using his name had rented a car in New Orleans.'


'And?' the colonel demanded.


'The next thing, someone using his card rented a motel room in Beaumont, Texas.'


'I'm impressed, Captain. I assume our people are in Beaumont now.'


'Yes. But Buchanan isn't there.'


'Isn't.?'


'It turns out he only stayed a couple of hours. He left at noon.'


'What?


'Obviously he wants to keep on the move,' Captain Weller said.


'To where?'


She shook her head. 'He seems to be heading west. The credit-card company promised to keep me informed.'


'There's only one problem,' Alan said.


They looked at him.


'The next time Buchanan surfaces with that card, the company won't only shut off his credit. It'll send the police after him. That'll be dandy, won't it? To have the police involved.'


'Shit,' Captain Weller said.


'And if you get your hands on him first,' Alan said, 'what are you going to do with him? Put him in solitary confinement? Don't you see how out of control this could get? Why don't you just let the man alone to disappear as he promised?'


Rain pelted against the window.


'Last night, you reported that he was convinced we were trying to assassinate him,' the colonel said.


'Correct.'


'Well, his suspicions are absurd. He's paranoid if he thinks we've turned against him. What does that say about his ability to disappear as he promised? Maybe he'll keep coming back to haunt us. And what about the reporter? She surrendered her research. But did she keep copies? Will she kill the story as she promised?'


'Whatever we decide, let's do it fast,' the major said. 'I've got two dozen undercover personnel in Latin America who expect me to make sure they have backup. Every minute I spend worrying about Buchanan, I run the risk that something else will go wrong. If only Buchanan had cooperated. All he had to do was stick to his cover story and become a trainer. What's wrong with being a trainer?'


'Because that isn't what he is,' Alan said.


They stared at him.


'And I'm not sure Buchanan is who he is, either,' Alan said.


9


The man following Buchanan became less conspicuous as they drove toward downtown San Antonio. When they reached better-lighted streets, Buchanan was able to see that the man used a Jeep Cherokee, gray, a good, unobtrusive color for a surveillance vehicle, especially at night. The man took care to stay back among other cars when he had the chance. It was only the first two minutes that had given him away.


It had been enough.


Buchanan pulled into a gas station, filled the tank, and went into the office to pay. When he came out, he noticed that the Jeep Cherokee was parked down the street from the gas station.


A little farther along the road, Buchanan stopped at a mini-mall and went into a Tex-Mex, quick-service restaurant, where he ate a beef-and-bean burrito and drank a Coke while he carefully glanced out the window toward where the Jeep Cherokee was parked in the shadows at the edge of the mall. Behind the steering wheel, the driver was talking into a car phone.


The spices in the burrito made Buchanan's face warm. Or maybe he was feverish from fatigue. He didn't know. His injured side ached. I've got to get some rest, he thought and swallowed three more Tylenol caplets.


The restaurant had an exit near the rest rooms in back. Buchanan stepped out behind the mini-mall and hurried along a shadowy alley in the direction of where the Jeep Cherokee was parked.


The man behind the steering wheel was too busy talking on the phone and watching the entrance to the restaurant to notice when Buchanan came up behind him on the passenger side. The moment the man - in his late twenties, wearing a Houston Oilers' jacket - set down the phone, Buchanan opened the passenger door, got in, and rammed his pistol into the man's beefy ribs.


The man groaned, his surprise aggravating his pain.


'What's your name?' Buchanan asked.


The man was too afraid to answer.


Buchanan pressed the gun harder against the man's ribs. 'Your name.''


'Frank. Frank Tucker.'


'Well, let's take a drive, Frank.'


The man seemed paralyzed with shock.


'Drive, Frank, or I'll kill you.' The threat was starkly matter-of-fact.


The man obeyed.


'That's right,' Buchanan said. 'Nice and easy into traffic. Keep both hands on the steering wheel.'


They passed Buchanan's car. He'd parked it along with several other cars in front of the Tex-Mex restaurant, where it wouldn't be conspicuous until the lot was otherwise empty at closing time.


'What do you want?' The man's voice trembled.


'Well, for starters.' Buchanan used his free hand to grope beneath Frank's windbreaker. He found a holster but no weapon. 'Where's the piece, Frank?'


The man's nervous gaze indicated the glove compartment.


Buchanan opened it and found a Smith and Wesson.357 Magnum revolver. 'So where are the others?'


'I don't have any others.'


'Maybe, Frank. I'll soon find out. But if you're lying, I'll blow off your right kneecap. You'll be a cripple for the rest of your life, which might be a whole lot shorter than you'd hoped. Turn into this convenience store. Swing around. Go back the way we came.'


'Listen, I don't know what this is about, but I'll give you all the money I have, and-'


'Spare me the line, Frank. Careful. I told you, both hands on the steering wheel.' Buchanan cocked his pistol and shoved it harder against Frank's ribs.


'Come on, man! If I hit a bump, that thing might go off.'


'Then don't hit a bump,' Buchanan said. 'What are you? Official or private?'


'I don't know what you-'


'Who do you work for?'


'I don't work for anybody.'


'Right, Frank. You just decided to amuse yourself by following me.'


'I wasn't following you. I've never seen you before.'


'Of course, Frank. We're just two strangers who bumped into each other and happen to be carrying guns. A coincidence. A sign of the times.' Buchanan studied him. 'You're not a cop. If you were, you'd have been covered by a backup team. You could be with the mob, but an Oilers' jacket and a Jeep Cherokee aren't exactly their style. What are you?'


No answer.


'Frank, I'm getting bored talking to myself. If I find a PI license on you, I'll shoot both your kneecaps.' Buchanan reached for the man's wallet.


'All right, all right.' Sweat beaded Frank's trembling upper lip. 'I'm a PI.'


'Finally we're getting to know each other. Tell me, Frank. Where'd you get your training? Come on. Keep up the conversation. Your training. Where did you-?'


'I learned on the job.'


'That's what it looks like. On the job and from movies. Here's a tip. When there isn't much traffic, follow your target from one block over. Stay parallel to him. If you keep the same speed, you'll see him at every intersection. But the odds are, he won't notice you. Only when you don't see him do you go over to the street he's on. That's where you made your first mistake - by staying behind me. Your second mistake was failing to lock your doors. It should have been harder for me to get at you. Third mistake: I don't care how uncomfortable it feels on a lengthy stakeout, keep your gun in your holster where you can reach it in a hurry. It's useless in the glove compartment if somebody's climbing into your car and pointing a gun at you.'


The phone rang.


'No, Frank. Keep your hands on the steering wheel.'


The phone rang a second time.


'Whoever it is can wait to talk to you,' Buchanan said. 'In fact, why don't we talk to him in person? Let's go back to Castle Hills.'


10


On his tilted mattress in the rear of the van, Duncan Bradley kept watch on the television screen that showed the magnified area in front of the Mendez house two blocks away. Simultaneously he listened to his earphones, although the audio transmissions from the target area had stopped thirty minutes ago, shortly after the man who called himself Jeff Walker had been forced from the Mendez house. The wife had argued with the husband about what he had done, about how the stranger might have been able to help find their daughter. The husband had told her to shut up, that the stranger was obviously no different than the other imposters who had asked about Juana. They'd gone to bed in sullen silence.


While he listened, Duncan kept trying to telephone his partner. Twice now, he'd let the phone ring ten times before canceling the attempted call. Tucker's failure to answer troubled him. Granted, there might be a reasonable, non-threatening explanation. Tucker might have followed Jeff Walker into a hotel, for example. But Duncan's unease prompted him to pick up the cellular phone yet again and press the button that would automatically dial Tucker's number.


He never had a chance to press the number, however, because movement attracted his gaze toward the second television and green-tinted, night-vision images of what was going on behind the van. The movement he'd seen was Tucker's Jeep Cherokee stopping behind him. The jeep's headlights went off. Duncan exhaled. Something must have gone wrong with Tucker's car phone. That was why he'd come back to tell him in person what he'd learned about Jeff Walker.


As the monitor showed Tucker getting out of his jeep and approaching the rear door of the van, Duncan raised himself off the mattress, crawled on his hands and knees toward the back, heard Tucker's knock, and opened the door.


'What happened to your phone? I've been trying to-' Duncan's throat clamped shut. His mouth hung open in stunned surprise as he saw a man next to Tucker. The man must have been hiding in the jeep. The man was Jeff Walker.


The man had a gun.


Oh, shit, Duncan thought.


11


The persistent ringing of the doorbell made Pedro Mendez angry.


For a lot of reasons. Worry about his daughter, confusion about Jeff Walker, and apprehension about the microphone in the bathroom's light-switch socket had made him so restless that it seemed he would never get to sleep. What was Jeff Walker going to tell him when they met at the garage tomorrow morning? Tense, Pedro had squirmed beneath the covers until at last, impossibly, mercifully, he'd somehow managed to doze, and now somebody was pushing that damned doorbell.


'Anita, stay in bed,' he ordered as he fumbled to his feet, put on a housecoat and slippers, grabbed a baseball bat from the closet, and stormed downstairs. Through the front door's window, he saw the shadow of a man on the murky porch. By God, if this was someone else looking for his daughter, Pedro intended to make very sure that the man explained what was going on.


But when Pedro turned on the porch light, his determination wavered when he saw that the man was Jeff Walker, who gestured impatiently for Pedro to unlock and open the door.


Pedro obeyed to a certain extent, making sure that when he inched the door open, he didn't release the security chain. 'What do you-?'


'Hurry. I have to show you something.' Jeff Walker pointed urgently toward the street.


Staring past him toward the darkness, Pedro noticed a small van at the curb. 'What are you doing here at-?'


'Please,' Jeff Walker said. 'It's about Juana. It's important.'


Pedro hesitated. But only for a moment. There was something about Jeff Walker that insisted on being trusted. Compelled, Pedro stifled his misgivings and opened the door.


Jeff Walker was already off the porch, moving quickly toward the van.


Pedro ran to catch up to him. 'What do you want to show me? Whose van is-?'


For the third time, Pedro was interrupted, this time because Jeff Walker opened the back of the van and turned on a flashlight.


Two men. naked, their hands tied behind them by their shirt sleeves, their ankles tied by their pant legs, their mouths stuffed with their underwear. lay on the floor of the van. They were lashed together by their belts. When the light revealed them, they squirmed.


'I know it's hard to be sure under these conditions,' Jeff Walker said, 'but are these two of the men who came to your house and asked about Juana?'


Pedro took the flashlight and stepped closer, aiming the beam from one face to the other. 'Yes. How did-?'


'They've been watching your house,' Jeff Walker said.


Pedro aimed the flashlight beam toward shelves of electronic equipment along the right side of the van. A television monitor showed a green-tinted, magnified image of the area in front of his house. Several tape recorders were linked to audio receivers. So it wasn't only one microphone that had been planted in the house, Pedro thought in dismay. The whole house must be. His knees felt weak. The pavement seemed to tilt.


Jeff Walker removed the gag from one of the men. 'Who else was working with you? Where do I find him?'


The man had trouble speaking, his mouth dry from the absorbent cloth that had been taken from his mouth.


Pedro flinched as Jeff Walker shoved a pistol against the man's testicles and asked, 'Who was the third man who came to Pedro's house?'


But as unnerved as Pedro felt, he leaned closer, desperate to learn everything he could.


'Somebody. somebody working for us part-time. We only used him one day. He went back to.' The man seemed to realize he was saying too much and shut up.


'Back to where?' Jeff Walker asked. When he didn't get an answer, he sighed. 'I don't believe you are taking me seriously.' He shoved the underwear back into the man's mouth, took a pair of pliers from an open tool case, and yanked out a clump of pubic hair.


The man screamed silently, tears welling from his eyes.


Pedro was shocked. At the same time, he was so afraid for Juana that a part of him wanted impatiently to grab the prisoner's head and bang it against the van's floor, anything to get answers.


Jeff Walker pivoted toward the second man, removed the underwear that gagged him, and sounded very reasonable when he said, 'Now I'm sure you wouldn't want that to happen to you. After I plucked every inch of your hair, I'd use some of Pedro's matches to singe the stubble. By the time I was through, your groin would look like the neck on a well-done turkey. But I've never liked the neck. I always.' He made a cutting motion as if he had a knife.


The first man continued to thrash in pain.


'Where did your part-time employee go back to?' Jeff Walker asked. 'Your accent isn't Texan. Where's home base for you?'


Jeff Walker brought the pliers toward the man's groin.


'Philadelphia,' the man blurted.


'You're watching this house to find Juana Mendez. Why?'


Yes, Pedro thought. Why?


The man didn't answer.


'Pedro, go get your matches.'


Pedro's angry resolve surprised him. He turned toward the house.


'Wait,' the man blurted. 'I don't know. That's the truth. I really don't. We were told to watch for her, to learn where she was.'


'And if you saw her? If you found out where she was?' Jeff Walker demanded.


Pedro listened intently.


The man gave no response.


'You're disappointing me,' Jeff Walker said. 'You need a reminder.' He leaned toward the first man and used the pliers to yank out more pubic hair.


Pedro suddenly began to appreciate Jeff Walker's tactic, realizing that the pain Jeff Walker inflicted on these men wasn't physical but psychological.


The first man thrashed, his tear-streaked face contorted by another silent scream. Since the two men were lashed together, every time the first man jerked, the second man was jolted.


'Care to try again?' Jeff Walker asked the second man, whose eyes bulged with fear. 'What were you supposed to do if you saw Juana or found out where she was?'


'Phone the people who hired us.'


'Who are they?'


'I don't know.'


'You don't know why they want her. You don't know who they are. It seems to me there's an awful lot you don't know. And it's making me angry.' Jeff Walker pinched his pliers into the skin of the second man's groin.


'No,' the second man pleaded.


'Who hired you?'


'They used an intermediary. I never had a name.'


'But you know how to get in touch with them.'


'On the phone.'


'What's the number?'


'It's programmed into.' The second man pointed his chin toward a cellular telephone on the floor of the van. 'All I had to do was press the recall button, number eight, and send.'


'Do they know I came to the house?'


'Yes.'


'What's your check-in code.'


'Yellow Rose.'


Jeff Walker picked up the phone. 'I hope for your sake that you're telling the truth.' He pressed the three buttons as instructed, placed the phone against his ear, and waited for someone to answer.


It took less than half a ring. Pedro was close enough to the phone to hear a seductive male voice say, 'Brotherly Love Escort Service.'


What Pedro heard next astonished him. Jeff Walker mimicked the second man's voice.


12


'This is Yellow Rose,' Buchanan said into the phone. 'That guy who came to the Mendez house tonight still worries me. Have you got anything more on him?'


The male voice lost its smoothness. 'Just what I told you. His name isn't Jeff Walker. It's Brendan Buchanan. He rented the Taurus in New Orleans, and. Wait a minute. Something's coming in on another line.' The connection was interrupted.


Buchanan waited, disturbed that these people had been able to learn his real name so fast.


The connection abruptly resumed, the voice strained. 'It's a good thing you called. Be careful. Our computer man found out that Brendan Buchanan is a captain in Army Special Operations, an instructor at Fort Bragg.'


Damn it, Buchanan thought.


'So I was right to be worried,' Buchanan said. 'Thanks for the warning. We'll be careful.'


Troubled, Buchanan pressed the END button. Throughout the call, the number he'd contacted had been shown on a display at the top of the phone. Now he took a pad and pencil from the floor of the van, printed the number, tore off the sheet of paper, and put it in a shirt pocket.


He studied the second man, deciding what further questions to ask, when suddenly he heard approaching footsteps. Whirling, he saw Anita Mendez crossing the lawn toward the van. She wore a housecoat. Her face was contorted with worry, puzzlement, and fear.


'Anita,' Pedro said, 'go back in the house.'


'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.


13


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.


14


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 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 goose-neck lamp, a yellow note pad, 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.


Buchanan opened the second drawer, found the files marked M through to Z, and noticed a slight gap where a 'I file appeared to have been removed. D and T. Those were the only two apparent omissions. Buchanan thought about it as he opened the bottom drawer and discovered a Browning 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol. The basic necessities, he thought.


What did Juana do for a living? Her parents had said that she was involved in private security. That kind of work would be a logical progression from what Juana had done in military intelligence. But private security could mean anything from doing risk assessments to installing intrusion detectors to providing physical protection. She might be a freelance or work for a major corporation.


He shut the bottom drawer, reopened the top one, and began to read some of the files. A pattern became obvious. Juana's principal activity had been to act as a protective escort for business women, female politicians and entertainers, or the wives of their male equivalents, primarily when they traveled to Spanish-speaking countries or to cities in America that had a sizeable Hispanic population. The logic was clear. A protector had to blend with the local population. Because Juana was Hispanic, she would lose considerable effectiveness in an environment in which her Latin facial characteristics and skin color attracted attention. There wasn't any point in her working in Africa, the Orient, the Mideast or northern Europe, for example. For that matter, even some of the northern United States. But Spain and Latin America were ideal for her. With that kind of travel, it wasn't any wonder that she stayed away from home for months at a time. Possibly her absence could be easily explained. Possibly she was merely on an assignment.


Then why the postcard? Why did she need my help?


Something to do with a job she was on? She might have wanted to hire me.


The notion that her interest in him would have been professional and not personal made Buchanan feel hollow. But only for a moment. He quickly reminded himself that a request for professional help would not have required so unusual and secretive a means of contacting him.


And snipers wouldn't be lying in wait to kill her.


No. Juana was in trouble, and even if she'd been away on a lengthy assignment, she wouldn't have neglected to phone her parents, certainly not for nine months in a row. Not willingly.


Something was stopping her. Either she wasn't physically capable of doing it, or else she didn't want to risk involving her parents in what had happened to her.


At the back of each file, Buchanan found itemized statements, copies of bills submitted and checks received. He learned that Juana's business had been quite successful. She'd been earning fees that ranged from five thousand dollars for consultations to ten thousand dollars for two-week escort jobs to a hundred thousand dollars for a two-month protective assignment in Argentina. A note in the file indicated that there had evidently been some shooting in the latter case. Protection was a demanding, sophisticated occupation for those who knew what it truly entailed. The best operatives were paid accordingly. Even so, Juana had been unusually successful. Buchanan made a rough estimate that she'd been earning close to a half-million dollars a year.


And living this simply, paradoxically without security devices? What had she been doing with the money? Had she been saving it, investing it, planning to retire in her mid-thirties? Again, Buchanan had no way to tell. He searched the office but didn't find a bank book, a statement from a brokerage firm, or any other sign of where she might have placed her money. Now that he thought about it, there hadn't been any mail outside or on the coffee table. Juana must have told the post office to hold it for her. Or else her parents had been picking it up. Before they'd come out here tonight, Anita had mentioned that she and Pedro sometimes drove out to inspect the place. Buchanan made a mental note to ask them about her mail, about whether she ever received statements from financial institutions.


At once the room appeared to sway, although actually it was his legs that caused the effect. They were wobbly. Exhausted, he sat in the tilt-back chair and rubbed his throbbing temples. The last time he'd slept through the night had been forty-eight hours ago, but that had been in the hospital, and even then, his sleep had not been continuous, the nurses waking him intermittently to check his vital signs. Since then, he'd slept for a few hours at the motel in Beaumont, Texas, and had a few naps at freeway rest stops en route to San Antonio. The knife wound in his side ached, its stitches making him itchy. The almost-healed bullet wound in his shoulder ached as well. His eyes were gritty from lack of sleep.


The files, he thought. Whoever was concerned enough to want to find Juana and kill her would have searched her home in hopes of discovering a clue about where she was hiding. If they wanted to kill her because she knew too much about them, they would have searched for and removed any evidence that linked her with them.


A name that begins with D. Another that begins with T. Those had been the two files that were obviously missing. Of course, the files might not be missing at all. Juana might have caused the gap in the sequence of the files when she replaced two files, scrunching a group of other files together in order to make room, leaving a space where her fingers had been.


But I've got to start somewhere, Buchanan thought. I have to assume that two files are missing and that they're important. He leaned back in the chair, hearing it creak, thinking that the pages in the files looked like computer printouts, wondering if the files might be in the computer.


And realized that the creak he had heard had not been from the chair but from the hallway.


15


Slowly Buchanan turned his head.


A man stood in the doorway. Mid-thirties. Five-foot-ten. A hundred and fifty pounds. His hair was sandy and extremely short. His face, like his build, was thin, but not unhealthily so; something about him suggested he was a jogger. He wore cowboy boots, jeans, a saddle-shaped belt buckle, a faded denim shirt, and a jeans jacket. The latter was slightly too large for him and emphasized his thinness.


'Find what you're looking for?' The man's flat, mid-Atlantic accent contrasted with his cowboy clothes.


'Not yet.' Buchanan lowered his hands from where he'd been massaging his temples. 'I've still got a few places to check.'


I locked the door after I came in, he thought. I didn't hear anybody follow me. How did-?


This son of a bitch hasn't been watching from outside. He's been hiding somewhere in the house.


'Such as?' The man's hands stayed by his side. 'What places haven't you checked?'


'The computer records.'


'Well, don't let me hold you up.' The man's cheeks were dark with beard stubble.


'Right.' Buchanan pressed the computer's ON button.


As the computer's fan began to whir, the man said, 'You look like hell, buddy.'


'I've had a couple of hard days. Mostly I need sleep.'


'I'm not having any picnic, hanging around here, either. Nothing to do but wait. Where I bunked.' The man pointed toward the next room down the hall. 'Weird. No wonder the woman had it locked. Probably didn't want her parents to see what she had in there. At first, I thought it was body parts.'


'Body parts?' Buchanan frowned.


'The stuff in that room. Belongs in a horror movie. Fucking bizarre. You mean you weren't told?'


What in God's name is he talking about? Buchanan wondered. 'I guess they didn't figure I needed to know.'


'Seems strange.'


'The stuff in that room?'


'No. That you weren't told,' the man said. 'If they sent you out here to take another look for something to tell us where the target is, the first thing they'd have done was prepare you for weird shit.'


'All they mentioned were the files.'


'The computer's waiting.'


'Right.' Buchanan didn't want to take his gaze away from the assassin, but he wasn't being given a choice. If Buchanan didn't seem to care about business, the man would become more suspicious than he already seemed.


Or maybe the man's suspicion was only something that Buchanan imagined.


On the computer screen, the cursor flashed where a symbol asked the user what program was to be activated.


'What's your name?' the killer asked.


'Brian MacDonald.' Buchanan immediately reverted to that identity, the one he'd assumed prior to becoming ex-DEA operative Ed Potter and going to Cancun, where all his recent troubles had started.


Brian MacDonald was supposed to have been a computer programmer, and in support of that identity, Buchanan had received instruction in that subject.


'Having trouble getting into the computer?' the killer asked. 'It didn't give me any trouble when they ordered me to erase a couple of files. You know about that, right? They told you I erased a couple of files?'


'Yes, but those files aren't what interest me.'


The cursor kept flashing next to the program-prompt sign. Juana's printed-out files had not been in a spreadsheet format but rather in standard prose paragraphs.


A word-processing program. But which one?


Buchanan-MacDonald typed DIR. At once the disc drive made clicking sounds, and a list of the symbols for the computer's programs appeared on the screen.


One of those symbols was WS, the abbreviation for a word-processing program known as WordStar.


Buchanan-MacDonald exited the list of the computer's programs and typed WS after the symbol that asked him what program he wanted. The computer's hard-disc drive made more clicking sounds. A list of other files appeared on the screen.


DIRECTORY OF DRIVE C:


A 't B't C't D't E't F't G't H't I't J'tK'tL'tM'tN't0'tP'tQ'tR't S't T't U't V 't W't X't Y't Z't AUTOEXEC.BAK.Ik AUTOEXEC.BAT.lk


Buchanan-MacDonald knew that AUTOEXEC.BAK was a precautionary backup for AUTOEXEC.BAT, a program that allowed the computer's user to switch from one file to another. The designation '.Ik' merely indicated the small amount of memory space that this program used. As for the alphabetical series, Juana had evidently subdivided her clients' files into subdirectories governed by the first letter of each client's last name.


Or so Buchanan guessed. At the moment, he was intensely preoccupied by the presence of the man in the doorway. The killer's breathing seemed to have become loud, strident, as if he were disturbed by something.


'Having problems?' the killer asked. 'Don't you know what to do next? Do I have to show you?'


'No,' Buchanan said. If he'd been alone, he would have accessed the subdirectories for D and T. But he didn't dare. If the killer had erased files in those subdirectories as he'd earlier mentioned, the man would wonder why Buchanan was interested in those same groups of names.


'But what I want to do next,' Buchanan said, 'is get something for this damned headache.' Slowly he stood, using his left hand to massage the back of his neck. 'Does the woman have any aspirin around here?'


The killer stepped slightly backward. He still kept both hands at his sides, not yet fully alarmed. But Buchanan, his heart pounding, had a sense that a crisis was about to explode.


Or it might have been that the man wasn't stepping backward defensively but rather to let Buchanan go past him and into the bathroom.


It was extremely hard to know.


'Bufferin,' the killer said. 'The medicine cabinet. Top shelf.'


'Great.'


But the man stepped out of the way yet again as Buchanan approached him, and obviously this time he was making sure that Buchanan didn't come within an arm's length of him.


The bathroom - across from the computer room - was dusty. White walls. White floor. White shower curtain. Simple. Basic.


Buchanan had no choice except to pretend to look for the aspirins, even though his headache was the last thing he now cared about. He opened the medicine cabinet, found the aspirin, swallowed two and returned to the computer room. It was empty.


He heard a buzz. Surprised, he stared down at the cellular phone that he had taken from the van and attached to the left side of his belt. He'd taken that phone instead of the one in the jeep because the jeep's phone wasn't portable. This way, if Pedro and Anita needed to get in touch with Buchanan, they could use a second phone, a nonportable one, that was part of the surveillance van's instrument panel. Now Pedro or Anita was evidently calling him to warn him about something.


Or maybe the call was from the surveillance team's controllers in Philadelphia.


Buchanan couldn't just let it keep ringing. That would arouse even more suspicion.


But as he reached to unhook the phone from his belt, he saw motion in the hallway. The killer appeared, and now he, too, had a cellular phone. He must have gotten it from the room where he'd been hiding.


He didn't look happy.


'Funny thing,' the killer said. 'I never heard of Brian MacDonald. I just called Duncan's van to make sure everything about you is on the up and up, and damned if your phone doesn't respond to his number, which tends to suggest that your phone is actually Duncan's phone, which makes me wonder why in hell-'


While the killer talked, keeping his left hand around the cellular phone, he moved his right hand beneath his jeans jacket. As Buchanan had noticed, the jacket was slightly too large, a logical reason for which would be that the killer had a holstered handgun beneath it.


'A coincidence,' Buchanan said. 'You're calling Duncan while somebody else is calling me. I'll show you.' He used his left hand to reach for the phone.


The killer's eyes focused on that gesture.


Simultaneously Buchanan shoved his right hand back beneath his sport coat, drawing his pistol from behind his belt at his spine.


The killer's eyes widened as he yanked his own pistol from beneath his jeans jacket.


Buchanan shot.


The bullet hit the man's chest.


Although the man was jolted backward, he still kept raising his weapon.


Buchanan's second bullet hit the man's throat.


Blood flew.


The man was jolted farther backward.


But his reflexes made his gunhand keep rising.


Buchanan's third bullet hit the man's forehead.


The impact knocked the man over. His gunhand jerked toward the ceiling. His spastic finger pulled the trigger. The pistol discharged, blowing a hole in the hallway ceiling. Plaster fell.


The man struck the hardwood floor in the computer room. He shuddered, wheezed, and stopped moving. Blood pooled around him.


Buchanan hurried toward the fallen man, aimed his pistol toward the man's head, kicked his gun away, and checked for life signs.


The man's eyes were open. The pupils were dilated. They didn't respond when Buchanan shoved his fingers toward them.


Quickly, Buchanan searched the man's clothes. All he found were a comb, coins, a handkerchief, and a wallet. He set the wallet on the table and hurried to get a small rug that he'd seen in the living room. After rolling the body onto the rug, he pulled the rug along the hallway, through the living room, and toward a back door in the kitchen.


The oppressive night concealed him. Shivering, his skin prickling from the river's dampness, Buchanan tugged the body across a screened porch, down three steps, and toward this deserted section of the river. He eased down the bank, found a log, hunched the body over it, shoved the log into the current, and watched as the body slipped off as soon as the current grabbed the log. The two objects drifted away, at once out of sight in the darkness. Buchanan threw the rug as far as he could into the river. He took out the man's gun, which he'd put beneath his belt, and threw it out into the river as well, obeying the rule of never keeping a weapon whose history you don't know. Finally he took out the killer's cellular phone along with the three empty shell casings from Buchanan's semiautomatic - he'd picked them up as he left the house - and threw them toward where the gun had splashed. He stared toward nothing, took several deep breaths to calm himself, and hurried back to the house.


16


His ears rang from the roar of the gunshots. His nostrils widened from the stench of cordite and blood. Drawing his weapon had pulled the stitches in his side and strained the muscles in his injured shoulder. Tugging the body had further strained his side and shoulder. His head continued to feel as if a spike had been driven through it.


He locked the back door behind him, found another rug, took it into the computer room, and set it over the pool of blood. Then he opened a window to clear the smells of violence. Next, he searched the man's wallet, found close to three hundred dollars in various denominations, a driver's license for Charles Duffy of Philadelphia and a credit card for that name. Charles Duffy might be an alias. It probably was. It didn't matter. If these credentials had been good enough for the killer, they were good enough for Buchanan. He shoved the wallet into his pocket. He now had a new identity. On the unlikely chance that anybody in this remote area had heard the shots and came to investigate, everything looked normal, except for the finger-sized hole in the hallway ceiling, which by itself wouldn't arouse suspicion, although the pieces of plaster on the floor would. Buchanan picked them up and shoved them into a pocket.


With haste, he sat before the computer, glanced at the file directory on the screen, A B C D. moved the flashing cursor from A to D, and pressed RETURN.


The disc drive made a clicking sound. A new list of files appeared on the screen, a subdirectory for all the headings under D.


'tDARNEL 3k


DARNELL.BAK 3k


DAYTON 2k


DAYTON.BAK 2k


DIAZ 4k


DIAZ.BAK 4k


DIEGO 5k


DIEGO.BAK 5k


DOMINGUEZ 4k


DOMINGUEZ.BAK 4k


DRUMMER 5k


DRUMMOND.BAK 5k


DURAN 3k


DURAN.BAK 3k


DURANGO 5k


DURANGO.BAK 5k


Quickly, Buchanan opened the top drawer of the filing cabinet and took out the printed documents for D. The only way he could think of to learn whether someone had removed any of the files was to compare the names on the files with those in the computer's subdirectory. Even so, he didn't have much hope. The man who'd been hiding here to kill Juana had said that he'd erased some files in the computer, presumably to stop an investigator from doing what Buchanan was trying to do. Almost certainly the computer's list would match the names on the printed files. He wouldn't be able to tell which documents were missing.


Each computer file had a companion file marked BAK, the short form for BACKUP, signifying that the computer's memory retained the previous version of a newly updated file. DARNELL. DARNELL.BAK. Comparing, Buchanan found a printed file for that name.


He continued. DAYTON. DAYTON.BAK. Check. DIAZ. DIAZ.BAK. Check. DIEGO. DIEGO.BAK. Check. He was finding printed files for every name on the computer screen. DOMINGUEZ. DOMINGUEZ.BAK. DRUMMER. DRUMMER.BAK. DURAN. DURAN.BAK. DURANGO. DURANGO.BAK. Every name was accounted for.


He leaned back, exhausted. He'd wasted his time. There'd been no point in risking his life to come here. All he'd learned was that someone was determined to kill Juana, which he'd known already.


And for that, he himself had nearly been killed.


He rubbed his swollen eyelids, glanced at the computer screen, reached to turn off the computer, but at the final instant, stopped his trembling hand, telling himself that no matter how hopeless, he had to keep trying. Even though the subdirectory for the files that began with 'I would probably be as uninformative as the subdirectory for D, he couldn't ignore it.


He shifted his hand from the OFF button to the keyboard, about to switch subdirectories, when something about the image on the screen made him feel cold. He'd been aware that a detail had been troubling the edge of his consciousness, but he'd attributed his unease to apprehension and the disturbing aftermath of violence.


Now he realized what had been troubling him. His eyes had played a trick on him. DRUMMER. DRUMMER.BAK. Like hell. Drummer didn't have a backup file. The backup file was for DRUMMOND. Buchanan was certain that he hadn't seen a file for Drummond, but by now exhaustion so controlled him that he couldn't trust what he thought he was sure of. His hands shook as he sorted through the printed files. DRUMMER. DURAN. DURANGO. No Drummond.


Christ, he thought. When the killer erased the Drummond file, he hadn't thought to erase the backup file, or maybe he'd considered doing so but had been stopped because his eyes played the same trick on him that Buchanan's eyes had played, creating the impression that DRUMMOND.BAK was actually DRUMMER.BAK. The names looked so much alike.


Drummond.


Buchanan didn't know what the name signified, and when he accessed the DRUMMOND.BAK file, he found to his dismay that it was empty. Either Juana had created the file but never put information into it, or else the assassin had erased it from the inside.


Buchanan accessed the subdirectory for T, and now that he knew what to look for, he checked the backup files rather than the primary ones, comparing the names to those on the printed 'I documents that he took from the filing cabinet.


TAYLOR.BAK. TAMAYO.BAK. TANBERG.BAK. TERRA-ZA.BAK. TOLSA.BAK. He was becoming more aware of the considerable number of Hispanic names. TOMEZ.BAK. Buchanan's pulse increased.


There wasn't any Tomez in the printed files or in the primary files of the computer's subdirectory for T. Again, Buchanan entered the file, and again he found nothing. Cursing, he wondered if Juana herself had erased the contents of the file. All Buchanan had was two last names, and if the assassin hadn't made the mistake of not deleting the backup titles, Buchanan wouldn't even have learned those names.


Frustrated, he debated what else to do, reluctantly shut off the computer, and decided to make a quick search of the house, even though he was sure that whoever wanted to kill Juana had sanitized the place.


That was when a chill swept through him as he remembered something odd that the killer had said. 'Where I bunked. Weird. No wonder the woman had it locked. Probably didn't want her parents to see what she had in there. At first, I thought it was body parts.'


17


Body parts? There'd been so much to do that until now Buchanan hadn't had the time to find out what the killer referred to. Apprehensive, he stood, left the computer room, and walked along the short hallway toward the next room on the left. The door was open, but the light was off, so that Buchanan couldn't see what was in there. When the killer had gone in to get his cellular phone, he evidently had known exactly where to find it and hadn't needed to turn on a light. Now Buchanan braced himself, noticed that the door had a dead-bolt lock, unusual for an indoor room, and groped along the inside wall to find a light switch.


When the overhead light gleamed, he blinked, not only from the sudden illumination but as well because of what he saw.


The room was startling.


Body parts? Yes, Buchanan could understand why the killer had first thought that body parts were what he was looking at.


Everywhere, except for a corner where the killer had placed a mattress for himself, there were tables upon which objects that resembled noses, ears, chins, cheeks, teeth, and foreheads were laid out in front of mirrors that had lights around them. One table had nothing but hair - different colors, different styles. Wigs, Buchanan realized. And what seemed to be body parts were prosthetic devices similar to what plastic surgeons used to reconstruct damaged faces. Another table was devoted exclusively to several makeup kits.


As Buchanan entered the room, staring to the right and then the left, then straight ahead, studying each table and the various array of eerily realistic imitations of human features, he understood that in her security business Juana had become a version of what he was. But whereas his own specialty was creating new personalities, hers was creating new appearances.


He'd never been confident with disguises. On occasion, he would grow a mustache or a beard, or else he would put on well-made facsimiles. A few times, he had used non-corrective contact lenses that changed the color of his eyes. A few other times, he had altered the length, style, and color of his hair. As well, he always tried to make each of his identities dress differently from the others, preferring particular watches, belts, shoes, shirts, sunglasses, even ballpoint pens, anything to make each character distinctive, just as each character had a favorite food, favorite music, favorite writer, favorite.


But Juana had become the ultimate impersonator. If Buchanan's suspicion was correct, she hadn't only been altering her personality with each job - she had been totally altering her physical appearance, not just her clothes but her facial characteristics, her weight, her height. Buchanan found padding that would have increased Juana's bust size. He found other padding that would have made her look pregnant. He found cleverly designed sneakers that had lifts that would have made her seem taller. He found makeup cream that would even have lightened the color of her skin.


A part of him was filled with professional amazement. But another part was horrified, realizing that at Caf‚ du Monde in New Orleans, she could have been sitting right next to him while he waited for her to enter the restaurant, and he would never have known how close she was. During his quest, he might have bumped into her or even spoken to her and never have been aware.


What had happened to her in the past six years? Where had she learned this stuff? Who was he looking for? She could be anybody. She could look like anybody. He remembered the last conversation they'd had. 'You don't know me,' he'd said to justify his inability to commit to her. 'You only know who I pretend to be.'


Well, she had outdone him, becoming the ultimate pretender. As he'd gone through the house, he'd thought it frustrating and strange that he'd found no photographs of her. He'd wanted so much to be reminded of her brown eyes, her shiny black hair, her hauntingly lovely face. Then he'd suspected that her hunters had taken the photographs so they'd be better able to memorize what she looked like. But if so, he now understood, the photographs wouldn't do them any good because there wasn't any definitive image of her. It may have been that Juana herself had removed the photographs because she no longer identified with any individual version of her appearance. Buchanan suddenly had the terrible sense that the woman he (or Peter Lang or whoever the hell he was) had fallen in love with was as insubstantial as a ghost. As himself. He felt sick. But he still had to find her.


18


He closed the window in the computer room, then used a handkerchief to wipe his fingerprints off everything he had touched. He shut off lights as he left each room, reconfirmed that he had done everything he had to, and finally shut the front door behind him, using his picks to relock the two dead-bolts. When the killer's partner arrived to begin his shift, the partner would take a while to figure out what had happened. The two rugs that had been moved (and one of which was missing), the bullet hole in the hallway ceiling, the blood beneath the rug that Buchanan had put in the computer room - each individually would not be obvious, but together they would eventually tell the story. The killer's partner would then waste time looking for the body. His report to his bosses would be confused, adding to the further confusion that the two snipers watching the Mendez house couldn't be found, either. The only certainty was that the people who were hunting Juana knew that a man named Brendan Buchanan had visited Juana's parents, and that made it equally certain that they would associate Brendan Buchanan with everything that had happened tonight. By morning, they'll be hunting me, he thought. No. They'll be hunting Brendan Buchanan. With luck, it'll take them a while to realize that tonight I became Charles Duffy.


Patting the wallet that he'd taken from the dead man and put in his jacket, Buchanan got into the Jeep Cherokee and backed from the driveway. His hands shook. His wounds hurt. His head throbbed. He'd come to the limit of his endurance. But he had to keep going.


A mile down the murky road, at the bottom of a misty hollow, he came to the van. Getting out of the jeep, he kept his right hand behind his back so that he could quickly draw his weapon if there had been trouble while he was away. He saw movement in the mist, tensed, then relaxed somewhat as Anita came toward him, telling him in Spanish that Pedro was in back with the bound and gagged sentries.


'The phone kept ringing.'


'I know,' Buchanan said.


'We thought it might be you, but it didn't ring twice, stop, and then ring again as you said it would if it was you. We didn't answer.'


'You did the right thing.'


Buchanan studied her. She seemed nervous, yes, but not in a way that suggested she knew that someone was hiding and aiming a weapon at her. Nonetheless he didn't fully relax until he made sure that the prisoners were as they had been and that nothing had happened to Pedro.


'Did you find Juana?' Pedro asked.


'No.'


'Did you find any sign of her?'


'No,' Buchanan lied.


'Then this was pointless. What are we going to do?'


'Leave me alone with these men for a minute. Sit with your wife in the jeep,' Buchanan said.


'Why?' Pedro looked suspicious. 'If you're going to question them about Juana, I want to hear.'


'No.'


'What do you mean? I told you if this is about my daughter, I want to hear.'


'Sometimes it's better to be ignorant.'


'I don't understand,' Pedro said.


'You will. Just leave me alone with these men.'


Pedro hesitated, then somberly got out of the van.


Buchanan watched to make sure that Pedro got into the jeep with Anita. Only then did he close the van's rear doors. The back of the van smelled from when Buchanan had allowed each man to use the porta-potty before he drove to Juana's house. They were still naked and looked chilled.


He aimed a flashlight at one man and then the other. 'You should have told me the sentry was in the house.'


Terror made their eyes wide, their faces gaunt.


'Now he's dead,' Buchanan said.


Their fearful expressions intensified.


'That puts the two of you in an awkward position,' Buchanan said. He took out his gun and used his other hand to ungag the first man.


'I figured,' the man said. 'That's why you sent the man and woman away. You didn't want them to see you kill us.'


Buchanan picked up a blanket from a corner of the van.


'Sure,' the man said in despair. 'A blanket can make a not-bad silencer.'


Buchanan pulled the blanket over the man and his partner. 'I wouldn't want you to get pneumonia.'


'What?' The man looked surprised.


'If our positions were reversed,' Buchanan said, 'what would you do to me?


The man didn't answer.


'We're alike, yet we're not,' Buchanan said. 'Both of us have killed. The difference is, I'm not a killer.'


'I don't know what you're talking about.'


'Is the distinction too subtle for you to grasp? I'll make it plain. I'm not going to kill you.'


The man looked simultaneously troubled and bewildered, as if mercy were not a familiar concept.


'Provided you follow the ground rules,' Buchanan said.


'What kind of.?'


'First of all, you're going to stay tied up until sunset,' Buchanan said. 'You'll be fed, given water, and allowed to use the toilet. But you'll remain in the van. Is that clear?'


The man frowned and nodded.


'Second, when you're released, you will not harm Pedro and Anita Mendez. They know nothing about me. They know nothing about their daughter. They're totally ignorant about any of this. If you torture them or use any other means to interrogate them, I'll get angry. You do not want me to be angry. If anything happens to them, I'll make your worst fears seem an understatement. You can hide. You can switch identities. It won't do you any good. I make a specialty of finding people. For the rest of your life, you'll keep looking behind you. Clear?'


The man swallowed. 'Yes.'


Buchanan got out of the van, left the doors open, and gestured for Pedro and Anita to come over.


Pedro started to say something in Spanish.


Buchanan stopped him. 'No. We have to speak English. I want to make sure that these men understand every word.'


Pedro looked confused.


'You're going to have a busy day watching them,' Buchanan said. 'I want you to find a place where this van won't be conspicuous. Maybe in back of one of your garages.' He explained his conversation with the prisoners. 'Let them go at sunset.'


'But.'


'Don't worry,' Buchanan said. 'They won't bother you. In fact, they'll be leaving town. Won't you?' he asked the first man.


The first man swallowed again and nodded.


'Exactly. Now all I need is for you to tell me if you have a check-in schedule,' Buchanan said. 'Is there anybody you have to phone at a specific time to let your employer know there hasn't been trouble?'


'No,' the man said.


'You're sure? You're negotiating for your life. Be very careful.'


'We're supposed to phone only if we have a question or something to report,' the man said.


'Then let's wrap this up.' Buchanan's legs were rubbery from pain and fatigue. He turned to Pedro and Anita. 'I need something to eat. I need a place to sleep.'


'We'd be honored to have you as a guest,' Anita said.


'Thanks, but I'd prefer that you don't have any idea where I am.'


'We'd never tell.'


'Of course not,' Buchanan said, not bothering to correct her, knowing that Pedro and his wife didn't have the faintest idea of how vulnerable they would be to torture. 'The less you know about any of this, the better, though. As long as these men realize you can't tell them anything, you're safe. Just keep the bargain I made. Release them at sunset. Meanwhile, on our way into town, I need to pick up my car. My bag's in the trunk.'


'What happens later? After you rest?' Pedro asked.


'I'm leaving San Antonio.'


'To where?'


Buchanan didn't answer.


'Are you going to Philadelphia? To find the people who hired these men? The people you spoke to on the phone?'


Buchanan still didn't answer.


'What happened at Juana's house?'


'Nothing,' Buchanan said. 'Pedro, drive the van while I stay in back and watch these men. Anita, follow in the jeep.'


'But what about Juana?'


'You have my word. I'll never give up.'


19


The Yucatan peninsula.


McIntyre, the sunburned, leathery foreman of the demolition crew, lay feverish and helpless on a cot in the log building that his men had constructed when they'd first arrived at the site. Dense trees and shrubs had still covered the ruins back then. The ruins themselves had still been here. Sanity had still prevailed.


Now, as it took all of McIntyre's strength for him to use his good arm to wipe sweat from his brow, he wished from the depths of his soul that he had never agreed to his damnable contract with Alistair Drummond. The considerable fee - a greater sum that he'd ever received for any assignment - had been irresistible, as had the equally considerable bonus that Alistair Drummond had promised if the project were successfully completed. McIntyre had worked all over the world. In the course of his career, his nomadic existence had resulted in two divorces, in his being alienated from two women he loved and two sets of children he adored. All because of McIntyre's urge to conquer the wilderness, to put order where there was chaos. But this assignment had required him to destroy order and create chaos, and now he was being punished.


The earth itself seemed infuriated by the obscenity that McIntyre and his crew had caused to happen here. Or maybe it was the gods in whose honor the ruins had been constructed. An odd thought for him, McIntyre realized. After all, he had never been religious. Nonetheless, as his death approached, he found that he was increasingly thinking about ultimates. What he would once have called superstition now seemed to make perfect sense. The gods were angry because their temples and shrines had been desecrated.


Destroy the ruins, Drummond had commanded. Scatter them. His word be done. And with each dynamite blast, with each crunch of a bulldozer, with each hieroglyph-covered block of stone dumped into a sinkhole, the earth and the gods beneath had protested. Periodic tremors had shaken the camp. Their duration had lengthened. And with the increased tremors had come a further horror, myriad snakes escaping from holes and fissures in the ground, a pestilence of them, only to be controlled by spraying kerosene and scorching the earth, further despoiling it. A pall of smoke hung over the devastated ruins.


For a time, the snakes had seemed everywhere, but as the tremors had stopped, the snakes had simultaneously vanished. No longer disturbed, they'd returned to their underground nests.


'Not in time, however. At least for McIntyre. The previous day, just before sunset, he had reached into a tool box to get a wrench and felt a sharp, burning pain just above his right wrist. Compelled by fear, rushing toward the medical tent, he barely had a glimpse of the tiny snake that slithered from the tool box and into a hole. The camp physician, an unshaven man who always seemed to have a cigarette in his mouth and whiskey on his breath, had injected McIntyre with antivenom and disinfected the puncture wounds, all the while assuring McIntyre that he'd been very lucky inasmuch as the fangs had missed the major blood vessels in his arm.


But as McIntyre had shivered from fear and shock, he hadn't felt lucky at all. For one thing, different snake toxins required different types of antivenom, but McIntyre hadn't been able to get a good enough look at the snake that had bitten him in order to identify it. For another, even if he had been given the correct antivenom, he still desperately needed emergency care in a hospital. But the nearest major hospital was in Campeche, a hundred and fifty miles away. A road had not yet been built through the jungle to allow a vehicle to leave the ruins. The only way McIntyre could be taken to Campeche in time for the medical treatment he urgently needed was by helicopter. But two of the camp's helicopters were much farther away, in Vera Cruz getting supplies, and weren't expected back for twelve hours. The third helicopter was in camp but disabled. That was why McIntyre had been reaching into the tool box when the snake hidden there bit him - he'd been helping a mechanic to fix the chopper's hydraulic system.


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 weren't soon fixed, if the other choppers didn't soon return, 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 boobytraps, 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 practised 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 come 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.'


TEN


1


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 weren'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.

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