Assumed Identity

she lowered the camera, turned, and walked away, disappearing around a corner. The oppressive sun intensified his headache. Festering pressure in his wound made him weaker. Dizziness halted him.

“What’s the matter?” Woodfield asked.

Buchanan didn’t answer.

“You looked as if you were about to go somewhere,” Woodfield said.

Buchanan frowned toward the corner, then turned toward the car. “Yeah, with you.” He opened the passenger door. “Hurry. Find a phone. Get me on a flight to Miami.”

All the way to the airport, Buchanan brooded about the red-haired woman. Why had she been taking photographs of him? Was she just a tourist and he merely happened to be in the foreground of a shot of a scenic building? Maybe. But if so, why had she walked away when he started toward her? Coincidence? Buchanan couldn’t afford to accept that explanation. Too much had gone wrong. And nothing was ever simple. There was always a deeper level. Then if she wasn’t just a tourist, what was she? Again he asked himself, Why was she taking pictures of me? The lack of an answer disturbed him as much as the threatening implications. He had only one consolation. At least, when she’d lowered the camera, turning to walk away, he’d gotten a good look at her face.

And he would remember it.

9

ACAPULCO, MEXICO

Among the many yachts in the resort’s famous bay, one in particular attracted Esteban Delgado’s attention. It was brilliant white against the gleaming green-blue of the Pacific. It was approximately two hundred feet long, he judged, comparing its length to familiar landmarks. It had three decks and a helicopter secured to the top. It was sculpted so that the decks curved like a hunting knife down to the point of the bow. Behind the decks, at the stern, a large sunning area-designed to allow voyeurs to peer down unobserved from the upper windows of the looming decks-was terribly familiar. If Delgado hadn’t known for certain, if his assistant hadn’t given him verified information less than an hour ago, Delgado would have sworn that the distinctive yacht didn’t just resemble the source of his sleepless nights and his ulcerated stomach but was in fact the very yacht, owned by his enemy, that figured so prominently in his nightmares. It didn’t matter that this yacht was called Full House, whereas the yacht he dreaded was called Poseidon, for Delgado felt sufficiently persecuted to have reached the stage of paranoia where he suspected that the yacht’s name had been altered in order to surprise him. But Delgado’s assistant had been emphatic in his assurance that as of noon today, the Poseidon, with Delgado’s enemy aboard, had been en route from the Virgin Islands to Miami.

Nonetheless, Delgado kept staring from the floor-to-ceiling window of his mansion. He ignored the music, laughter, and motion of the party around the pool on the terrace below him. He ignored the women, so many beautiful women. He ignored the flowering shrubs and trees that flanked the expensive pink vacation homes similar to his, carved into the slope below him. Instead, he focused his gaze beyond the Costera Miguel Aleman boulevard that rimmed the bay, past the deluxe hotels and the spectacular beach. The yacht alone occupied him. The yacht and the yacht it resembled and the secret that Delgado’s enemy used to control him.

Abruptly something distracted him. It wasn’t unexpected, although it was certainly long anticipated, a dark limousine reflecting sunlight, coming into view on the slope’s curving road, veering through the gates, past the guards. He brooded, squinting, hot despite the room’s powerful air conditioning. His surname had always been coincidentally appropriate for him, inasmuch as Delgado meant “thin,” and even as a boy he’d been tall and slender, but lately he had heard whispered, concerned remarks about his appearance, about how much weight he had recently lost and how his carefully tailored suits now looked loose on him. His associates suspected that his weight loss was due to disease (AIDS, it was rumored), but they were wrong.

It was due to torment.

A knock at the door interrupted his distraction and jerked him back to full awareness. “What is it?” he asked, betraying no hint of tension in his voice.

A bodyguard replied huskily beyond the door, “Your guest has arrived, Senor Delgado.”

Wiping his clammy hands on a towel at the bar, assuming the confident demeanor of the second most powerful man in Mexico’s government, he announced, “Show him in.”

The door was opened, a stern bodyguard admitting a slightly short, balding, uncomfortable-looking man who was in his late forties and wore a modest, rumpled business suit. He carried a well-used briefcase, adjusted his spectacles, and looked even more uncomfortable as the bodyguard shut the door behind him.

“Professor Guerrero, I’m so pleased that you could join me.” Delgado crossed the room and shook hands with him. “Welcome. How was the flight from the capital?”

“Uneventful, thank heavens.” The professor wiped his sweaty forehead with a handkerchief. “I’ve never been comfortable flying. At least I managed to distract myself by catching up on some paperwork.”

“You work too hard. Let me offer you a drink.”

“Thank you, Minister, but no. I’m not used to drinking this early in the afternoon. I’m afraid I. .”

“Nonsense. What would you like? Tequila? Beer? Rum? I have some excellent rum.”

Professor Guerrero studied Delgado and relented, swayed by the power of the man who had summoned him. Delgado’s official title was Minister of the Interior, but that influential position on the president’s cabinet didn’t indicate his even greater influence as the president’s closest friend and adviser. Delgado and the president had grown up together in Mexico City. They’d both been classmates in law school at Mexico’s National University. Delgado had directed the president’s election campaign, and it was widely understood that the president had chosen Delgado to he his successor.

But all of that-and especially the chance to acquire the fortune in bribes and kickbacks that was the president’s due-would be snatched from him, Delgado knew, if he didn’t do what he was ordered, for in that case his blackmailer would reveal Delgado’s secret and destroy him. At all costs, that had to be prevented.

“Very well,” Professor Guerrero said. “If you insist. Rum with Coke.”

“I believe I’ll join you.” As Delgado mixed the drinks, making a show of what a man of the people he was by not sending for a servant, he nodded toward the music and laughter drifting up from the poolside party on the terrace below. “Later, we can join the festivities. I’m sure you wouldn’t mind getting out of your business clothes and into a bathing suit. And I’m very sure that you wouldn’t object to meeting some beautiful women.”

Professor Guerrero glanced self-consciously toward his wedding ring. “Actually, I’ve never been much for parties.”

“You need to relax.” Delgado set the moisture-beaded drinks on a glass-and-chrome table, then gestured for Guerrero to sit in a plush chair across from him. “You work too much.”

The professor sat stiffly. “Unfortunately, our funding isn’t large enough to allow me to hire more staff and reduce my responsibilities.” He didn’t need to explain that he was the director of Mexico’s National Institute of Archaeology and History.

“Then perhaps additional funding can be arranged. I notice you haven’t touched your drink.”

Reluctant, Guerrero took a sip.

“Good. Salud.” Delgado sipped from his own. At once, his expression became somber. “I was troubled by your letter. Why didn’t you simply pick up the telephone and call me about the matter? It’s more efficient, more personal.” He silently added, And less official. Bureaucratic letters, not to mention the inevitable file copies made from them, were part of the public record, and Delgado preferred that as few of his concerns as possible be part of the public record.

“I tried several times to talk to you about it,” Guerrero insisted. “You weren’t in your office. I left messages. You didn’t return them.”

Delgado looked disapproving. “I had several urgent problems that demanded immediate attention. At the first opportunity. I intended to return your calls. You need to be patient.”

“I’ve tried to be patient.” The professor wiped his forehead, agitated. “But what’s