Assumed Identity

TWELVE
1

MEXICO CITY

The unregulated exhaust from countless smoke-belching factories and ill-maintained automobiles burning leaded fuel was trapped by a thermal inversion above the mountain-surrounded metropolis and made the air in the largest and fastest-growing city in the world virtually unbreathable. Buchanan’s throat felt scratchy. He began to cough as soon as he and Holly got tourist cards and left Juarez International Airport. His eyes burned from the haze-so dense that if not for its acrid smell and biting taste it might have been thought to be mist. The air conditioner in the taxi they hired wasn’t working. Nonetheless, he and Holly closed their windows. Better to swelter inside the cab than to breathe the noxious atmosphere outside.

It was 9:15. They’d managed to drive from Key West to Miami in time to catch an 8:00 A.M. United flight to Mexico City. Because of a time-zone change backward, the duration of the flight had actually been two hours and fifteen minutes, and after eating a cheese-and-onion omelet supplied by the airline, Buchanan had been able to doze. For too long now, his schedule had been erratic. His exhaustion worsened. His headache continued to torture him.

So did the bitterness he felt toward Holly. Against his instincts, he had actually begun to trust her. As she’d pointed out to him, she had saved his life, and in other ways she’d been of considerable help. But he needed to keep reminding himself that she was a reporter. In the stress of his search for Juana, he’d already indirectly revealed too much about his past. More, it made him angry to think that this woman whom he had allowed to get close to him had been sent by Alan to destroy him.

For her part, Holly remained silent, as if understanding that anything she said would be misinterpreted, as if knowing that her presence would be tolerated only if she didn’t draw his attention to her.

“The National Palace,” Buchanan told the cabdriver in Spanish, and the words were similar enough to English that Holly understood, although she didn’t ask why they were going to a palace instead of to a hotel. Or maybe the National Palace was a hotel. She didn’t know. She’d never been to Mexico City before. As it turned out, their destination was neither a hotel nor a palace but Mexico’s center of government.

Even in the dense haze of pollution, the site was impressive. Amid congested traffic, an immense square was flanked by massive buildings, two of which were cathedrals. The National Palace itself was renowned for its arches, pillars, and patios.

After leaving the taxi, Buchanan and Holly passed through a crowd and entered the National Palace’s vestibule, where large colorful murals lined the main staircase and the first-floor corridors. The murals, by Diego Rivera, conveyed the sprawling history of Mexico from the era of the Aztecs and Maya, to the invasion by the Spaniards, to the mixture of races, the numerous revolutions, and ultimately an idealized future in which Mexican peasants worked happily and coexisted gloriously with nature. Given the pollution outside, that idealized future was obviously a long way off.

Buchanan stopped only a moment to assess the murals. He’d become more intense, more driven, as if he was controlled by a terrible premonition and didn’t dare waste even a second. In a noisy, echoing corridor, he spoke to a guide and was directed toward a door down the hall. There, in a gift shop, Buchanan ignored books and artifacts on sale, scanning the walls, seeing photographs of what were obviously government officials, some in groups, others alone. He studied several of the photographs, as did Holly, although she risked a sideways glance toward him that revealed his alarmingly rigid cheek muscles and a strong, furious pulse in his neck and temple. His dark eyes seemed to blaze. He pointed at a photograph, the image catching Holly’s attention as well: a tall, slender, thin-faced, hawk-nosed Hispanic male in his early forties. The man had a mustache, wore an expensive suit, and exuded arrogance.

“Yes,” Holly said.

Buchanan turned to a young female clerk and pointed toward the photograph. “Este hombre. Como se llama, por favor?”

“Quien? Ah, si. Esteban Delgado. El Ministro de Asuntos Interiores.”

“Gracias,” Buchanan said. As he bought a book, he asked the clerk more questions, and five minutes later, when he and Holly left the gift shop, Buchanan had learned that the man who’d raped and murdered Maria Tomez was “not just the Minister of the Interior. He’s the second most powerful man in Mexico. Next in line to be president. According to the clerk, that’s common knowledge,” Buchanan said. “In Mexico, when the outgoing president chooses his replacement, the election is mostly a formality.”

Surprised that he’d broken his silence toward her, Holly took advantage of the opportunity, hoping that his anger toward her had softened. “Unless somebody’s got a videotape of him that’s so disgusting it would totally destroy his career, not to mention put him in prison.”

“Or get him executed.” Buchanan rubbed his pained forehead. “A man like Delgado would give anything not to have that tape made public. The question is what, though? What does Drummond want?”

“And what happened to Juana Mendez?”

Buchanan’s gaze was intense. “Yes. That’s finally what this is about. Juana.”

The word stung, as did its implication: not you.

“Don’t just tolerate me,” Holly said. “Don’t just keep me along because you’re afraid I’ll turn against you. I’m not your enemy. Please. Use me. Let me help.”