SIX
1
ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA
The safe site was on the third floor, yet another apartment in yet another sprawling complex into which Buchanan could easily blend. After he’d arrived in Washington from Florida, he’d used a pay phone to report to his controller, just as he’d reported at various stops along the Amtrak route. A man’s voice told him to be waiting, seated, on the steps outside the Library of Congress at 3:00 P.M. Precisely at that time, a middle-aged man wearing a blue blazer and gray slacks stopped beside him and bent down to tie his right shoe. When the man departed, Buchanan concealed the small envelope that the man had slid toward him. After waiting five minutes longer, Buchanan then went into the Library of Congress, entered a men’s room, and locked himself in a stall, where he opened the envelope, took out a key, and read a slip of paper that provided him with a name, some biographical information, an Alexandria address, and an apartment number. The paper and the envelope were far from ordinary. He dropped them into the water in the toilet and watched them dissolve. In the library’s reference section, he used an area directory to tell him which major streets were near the Alexandria apartment, and shortly before six that evening, he got out of a taxi a few blocks from his destination, walking the rest of the way, out of habit using evasion procedures in case he was being followed.
His name was now Don Colton, he’d been informed. He was supposed to be a writer for a travel magazine that he assumed was affiliated with his controllers. Posing as a travel writer was an excellent cover, Buchanan thought, inasmuch as a travel writer by definition was on the move a great deal and hence the neighbors wouldn’t consider it unusual that they never saw him. However, because Buchanan’s controllers would not have had sufficient time to tailor the cover specifically to him, he automatically assumed that this identity would be temporary, an all-purpose, one-size-fits-all persona that his controllers maintained for emergencies. As Don Colton, Buchanan was in a holding pattern and would soon be sent to God-knew-where as God-knew-who.
Avoiding the elevator, he used fire stairs to get to the third floor. After all, because most people preferred elevators, there was less chance of encountering anybody on the stairs. He reached a concrete corridor with fluorescent lights along the ceiling. As he had hoped, no one was in view, the tenants having already arrived home from work. Doors to apartments flanked each side. As he walked along green heavy-duty carpeting, he heard music behind one door, voices behind another. Then he came to 327, used the key he’d been given, and entered the apartment.
He turned on the lights, scanned the combination living room-kitchen, locked the door, checked the closets, the bathroom, and the bedroom, all the while avoiding the windows, then turned off the lights, closed the draperies, and finally turned the lights back on, only then slumping on the sofa. He was safe. For now.
2
The apartment had a hotel-room feel to it, everything clean but utilitarian and impersonal. A corner of the living room had been converted into a minioffice with a desk, a word processor, a printer, and a modem. Several copies of the magazine he was supposed to work for were stacked on the coffee table, and when Buchanan examined their contents, he found articles under his pseudonym, another indication that Don Colton was an all- purpose identity. Obviously, the magazines had been prepared well in advance, not just for him but for any operative who happened to need this type of cover. Don Colton-at least
Nonetheless, Buchanan still had to make his portrayal of Colton believable, and the first step was to familiarize himself with the articles he was supposed to have written. But halfway through the second essay-about Tahiti-he suddenly discovered that two hours had passed. He frowned. It shouldn’t have taken him that long to read just a few pages. Had he fallen asleep? His headache-which had never gone away since he’d banged his skull in Cancun-worsened, and he surprised himself by no longer caring about his persona as a travel writer. Weary, he stood, went into the kitchen, which was separated from the living room by only a counter, and poured himself a drink from a bottle of bourbon that was next to the refrigerator along with bottles of gin and rum. After adding ice and water, he debated which to do first-to shower or to open one of the cans of chili he found in a cupboard. Tomorrow, he’d have to decide what to do about clean clothes. The ones he’d found in the bedroom closet were too small for him. But he couldn’t leave the apartment without establishing a procedure with his employers so they’d know how to get in touch with him, and that was when the phone rang.
It startled him.
He pivoted toward the living room, staring toward the phone on a table next to the sofa. The phone rang a second time. He sipped from his bourbon, letting his nerves calm. The phone rang a third time. He
“Hello.” He tried to make his voice sound neutral.
“Don!” an exuberant male voice exclaimed. “It’s Alan! I wasn’t sure you’d be back yet! How the hell are you?”
“Good,” Buchanan said. “Fine.”
“The trip went okay?”
“The last part of it.”
“Yeah, your postcards mentioned you had a few problems at some earlier stops. Nothing you couldn’t handle, though, right?”
“Right,” Buchanan echoed.
“That’s really swell. Listen, buddy, I know it’s getting late, but I haven’t seen you in I can’t remember when. What do you say? Have you eaten yet? Do you feel like getting together?”
“No,” Buchanan said, “I haven’t eaten yet.”
“Well, why don’t I come over?”
“Yeah, why not?”
“Great, Don. Can’t wait to see you. I’ll be over in fifteen minutes. Think about where you want to eat.”
“Someplace that’s dark and not too crowded. Maybe with a piano player.”
“You’re reading my mind, Don, reading my mind.”
“Be seeing you.” Buchanan set down the phone and massaged his aching temples. The man’s reference to postcards and his own reference to a piano player had been the recognition sign and countersign that the note he’d destroyed at the Library of Congress had told him to use if he was contacted. His debriefing would soon begin.
Yet another.
His temples continued to ache. He thought about washing his face but first drank his glass of bourbon.
3
Fifteen minutes later, precisely on schedule, the doorbell rang. Buchanan peered through the door’s security eye and saw a fortyish, short-haired, portly man in a brown-checkered sport coat. The voice on the phone had not been familiar, so Buchanan wasn’t surprised that he’d never seen this man before, assuming that the voice on the phone belonged to this man. All the same, Buchanan had hoped that one of the controllers he’d dealt with previously would show up. He’d been through too many changes.
He opened the door warily. After all, he couldn’t take for granted that the man was his contact. But the man immediately allayed his suspicions by using the same cheery tone that Buchanan had heard earlier. “Don, you look fabulous. In your postcards, you didn’t say you’d lost weight.”
“My diet didn’t agree with me. Come on in, Alan. I’ve been thinking, maybe we shouldn’t go out to eat. I’m not in the mood for a piano player.”
