Assumed Identity

5

“Something’s wrong,” Buchanan said.

Doyle didn’t respond, just stared straight ahead and pretended to concentrate on traffic.

Buchanan decided to push it. “Your wife’s so good-natured, I get the sense she’s working at it. Working hard. She doesn’t ask questions, but she picks up overtones-about that phone call, for example. If her smile got any harder, her face would have cracked. She doesn’t believe for a minute that you and I are friends. Oh, she tries to pretend, but the truth is, I make her nervous, and at lunch she finally wasn’t able to hide it anymore. If she gets any more nervous, I might have to leave.”

Doyle kept staring ahead, driving over bridges that spanned canals along which pleasure boats were moored next to palm trees and expensive homes. The sunlight was fierce. Doyle seemed to squint less from the sun and more from the topic, however, as he put on dark glasses.

Buchanan let him alone then, eased the pressure, allowing Doyle to respond at his own pace. Even so, Doyle took so long to reply that Buchanan began to think that he never would unless Buchanan prompted him again.

That wasn’t necessary.

“You’re not the problem,” Doyle said, his voice tight. “How I wish life could be that simple. Cindy’s glad to have you at the house. Really. She wants you to stay as long as necessary. When it comes to the favors I do, her nerves are incredible. I remember once. . I was stationed at Coronado, California. . Cindy and I lived off base. I said good-bye to her in the morning, drove to work, and suddenly my team was put on alert. No communications to anyone off base. So naturally I couldn’t tell her I was being airlifted out. I could imagine what she’d be feeling when I didn’t come home that night. The confusion. The worry. No emotional preparation for what might be the last time we saw each other.” Doyle’s voice hardened. He glanced toward Buchanan. “I was away for six months.” Buchanan noted that Doyle didn’t say where he’d been sent, and Buchanan would never have asked. He let Doyle continue.

“I found out later that a reporter had managed to discover that I was a SEAL and Cindy was my wife,” Doyle said. “The reporter showed up at our apartment and wanted her to tell him where I’d been sent. Well, at that point, Cindy still didn’t know I was gone, let alone to where, which of course-the where part-she never would have known anyhow. But someone not as strong as Cindy couldn’t have helped being surprised to find a reporter blurting questions at her and telling her I’d been sent on a mission. The natural response would have been for her to show her surprise, admit I was a SEAL, and ask him how much danger I was in. Not Cindy, though. She stonewalled him and claimed she didn’t know what he was talking about. Other reporters showed up, and she stonewalled them as well. Her answer was always the same: ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Amazing. She never phoned the base, wanting to know what was happening to me. She just acted as if everything was normal, and Monday through Friday she went to her job as a receptionist for an insurance company, and when I finally got back, she gave me a long, deep kiss and said she’d missed me. Not ‘Where were you?’ just that she’d missed me. I left on plenty of missions, and I never for a second doubted that she was faithful to me, either.”

Buchanan nodded, but he couldn’t help wondering, If Cindy wasn’t nervous because of his presence, what was the source of the tension he sensed?

“Cindy has cancer,” Doyle said.

Buchanan stared.

“Leukemia.” Doyle’s voice became more strained. “That’s why she wears that kerchief on her head. To hide her scalp. The chemotherapy has made her bald.”

Buchanan’s chest felt numb. He understood now why Cindy’s cheeks seemed to glow, why her skin seemed translucent. The chemicals she was taking-combined with the attrition caused by the disease-gave her skin a noncorporeal, ethereal quality.

“She just got out of the hospital yesterday after one of her three-day treatments,” Doyle said. “All that fuss about the food at lunch today. Hell, it was all she could do to eat it. And the pie she was making. . The chemotherapy does something to her sense of taste. She can’t bear sweets. While you were napping, she threw up.”

“Christ,” Buchanan said.

“She’s determined to make you feel at home,” Doyle said.

“You’ve got trouble enough without. . Why didn’t you turn this assignment down? Surely my controllers could have found someone else to give me cover.”

“Apparently, they couldn’t,” Doyle said. “Otherwise, they wouldn’t have asked me.”

“Did you tell them about. .?”

“Yes,” Doyle said bitterly. “That didn’t stop them from asking me. No matter how much she suspects, Cindy can’t ever be told that this is an assignment. All the same, she knows it is. I’m positive of that, just as I’m positive that she’s determined to do this properly. It gives her something to think about besides. .”

“What do her doctors say?” Buchanan asked.

Doyle steered onto a highway along a beach. He didn’t answer.

“Is her treatment doing what it’s supposed to?” Buchanan persisted.

Doyle spoke thickly, “You mean, is she going to make it?”

“. . Yeah, I guess that’s what I mean.”

“I don’t know.” Doyle exhaled. “Her doctors are encouraging but noncommittal. One week, she’s better. The next week, she’s worse. The next week. . It’s a roller coaster. But if I had to give a yes-or-no answer. . Yes, I think she’s dying. That’s why I asked if what we’re doing puts her in danger. I’m afraid she’s got so little time left. I couldn’t stand it if something else killed her even sooner. I’d go out of my mind.”