Assumed Identity

3

“Can I ask you something?”

Holly waited for a reply, but Buchanan ignored her, staring straight ahead as he drove their rented car south along the Insurgentes Sur freeway.

“Sure, what did I expect?” Holly said. “You haven’t been communicative since. . Never mind. We’ll skip that topic. What I want to ask is, how do you do it?”

Again Buchanan didn’t reply.

“At Delgado’s office,” Holly said. “That secretary could just as easily have told us to get lost. Somehow you manipulated her into phoning Delgado. I’ve been trying to figure out how. It wasn’t what you said exactly. It. .”

“I get in someone else’s mind.”

Holly frowned at him. “And the CIA taught you how to do this?”

Buchanan’s voice hardened. “Now you’re being a reporter again.”

“Will you stop being so defensive? How many times do I have to tell you? I’m on your side. I’m not out to destroy you. I. . ”

“Let’s just say I had training along the line.” Buchanan clutched the steering wheel and continued to stare at the busy highway. “Being a deep-cover operative isn’t just having false documents and a believable cover story. To assume an identity, I have to transmit the absolute conviction that I am who I claim to be. That means believing it absolutely myself. When I spoke to that secretary, I was Ted Riley, and something in me went out to her. Went into her mind. Stroked her into believing in me. Remember we talked about elicitation? It isn’t merely asking subtle questions. It’s enveloping someone in an attitude and emotionally drawing them toward you.”

“It sounds like hypnotism.”

“That’s how I made my mistake with you.” Buchanan’s tone changed, becoming bitter.

Holly tensed.

“I stopped concentrating on controlling you,” Buchanan said.

“I still don’t understand.”

“I stopped acting,” Buchanan said. “For a while with you, I had an unusual experience. I stopped impersonating. Without realizing it, I became somebody I’d forgotten about. Myself. I related to you as. . me.” He sounded more bitter.

“Maybe that’s why I became attracted to you,” Holly said.

Buchanan scoffed. “I’ve been plenty of people better than myself. In fact, I’m the only identity I don’t like.”

“So now you’re avoiding yourself by being-who did you say you once were? Peter Lang?. . searching for Juana?”

“No,” Buchanan said. “Since I met you, Peter Lang has become less and less important. Juana matters to me because. . In Key West, I told you I couldn’t decide anything about my future until I settled my past.” He finally looked at her. “I’m not a fool. I know I can’t go back six years and God knows how many identities and start up where I left off with her. It’s like. . For a very long time I’ve been pretending, acting, switching from role to role, and I’ve known people I couldn’t allow myself to care about in those roles. A lot of those people needed help that I couldn’t go back and give them. A lot of those people died, but I couldn’t go back and mourn for them. Most of my life’s been a series of boxes unrelated to one another. I’ve got to connect them. I want to become. .”

Holly waited.

“A human being,” Buchanan said. “That’s why I’m pissed at you. Because I let my guard down, and you betrayed me.”

“No,” Holly said, touching his right hand on the steering wheel. “Not anymore. I swear to God-I’m not a threat.”