Assumed Identity

“As I told you, her family, friends, and former contacts are under surveillance.”

“No. Look deeper. She wouldn’t have fled unless she had a plan. Somewhere there’s someone who knows about this sort of thing and whom she knows she can ask for help. Someone who isn’t obvious. Someone she trusts.”

“I’ll get started immediately.”

“You’ve disappointed me,” the old man said. “Your success in Chicago and Guatemala was so encouraging that I’d arranged a reward for you. Now, I’m afraid, I’ll have to withhold it.”

An intercom buzzed on a table beside the old man’s chair. He pressed a button. “I told you not to interrupt me.”

“Sheik Hazim is returning your telephone call, Professor,” a female voice said.

“Of course. I’ll speak to him.” The old man rested his hand on the telephone beside the intercom. But before he picked it up, he told his visitor, his voice stern and flinty, “Don’t disappoint me again.” He adjusted the flow of red liquid that drained from an intravenous bottle into his arm-blood treated with hormones from unborn lambs. “Find the bitch before she ruins everything. If Delgado discovers she’s loose, if he discovers she’s out of control, he’ll go after her and possibly us.”

“I can deal with Delgado.”

“Of that, I have no doubt. Without Delgado, however, I can’t do business. I can’t get access to the ruins. And that would make me very unhappy. You do not want to be near me when I am unhappy.”

“No, sir.”

“Get out.”

TWO 1

CANCUN, MEXICO

All the hotels were shaped like Mayan temples, a row of terraced pyramids along the four-lane highway dividing the sandbar that until twenty-five years ago had been uninhabited. Buchanan ignored them and the redbrick sidewalk along which he concentrated to walk with deceptive calm. As twilight thickened into night, what he paid attention to were the disturbing proximity of tourists before and behind him, the threatening rumble and glare of traffic passing him on the right, and the ominous shadows among the palm trees that flanked the hotels on his left.

Something was wrong. Every instinct and intuition warned him. His stomach felt rigid. He tried to tell himself that he was merely experiencing the equivalent of stage fright. But his experience of too many dangerous missions had taught him the hard way to pay attention to the visceral warning signals that alerted him when something wasn’t as it should be.

But what? Buchanan strained to analyze. Your preparation was thorough. Your bait for the target is perfect. Why in God’s name are you so nervous?

Burnout? Too many assignments? Too many identities? Too many high-wire juggling acts?

No, Buchanan mentally insisted. I know what I’m doing. After eight years, after having survived this long, I recognize the difference between nerves and. .

Relax. You’re on top of things. Give yourself a break. It’s hot. It’s muggy. You’re under stress. You’ve done this a hundred times before. Your plan is solid. The bottom line is quit second-guessing. Get control of your doubts, and do your job.

Sure, Buchanan thought. But he wasn’t convinced. Maintaining his deceptively leisurely pace in spite of the pressure in his chest, he shifted leftward, relieved to escape the threatening traffic. Past the equally threatening shadows of the dense, colorfully flowered shrubs that lined the driveway, he proceeded warily up the curving entrance toward the glistening Mayan-temple shape of Club Internacional.

2

Buchanan’s appointment was for 9:30, but he took care to arrive ten minutes early in order to survey the meeting place and verify that nothing about the site had changed that might jeopardize the rendezvous. For the past three evenings, he’d visited this hotel exactly at this time, and on each occasion he’d satisfied himself that the location was perfect.

The problem was that this night wasn’t those other nights. A plan that existed perfectly on paper had to match the “real world,” and the real world had a dangerous habit of changing from day to day. A fire might have damaged the building. Or the site might be so unusually crowded that a discreet, nonetheless damning, conversation could be easily overheard. An exit might be blocked. There were too many variables. If anything disturbed him, Buchanan would disguise his concern and drift back into the night. Then by prior agreement, when his contact arrived at 9:30 and didn’t see Buchanan, the contact would know that the circumstance wasn’t ideal, a euphemism for “get your ass out of here,” that the meeting had been postponed until eight tomorrow morning at breakfast at another hotel, and of course Buchanan had arranged a further backup plan in case that second meeting, too, was postponed. Because Buchanan had to assure his contact that every precaution was being considered, that the safety of the contact was Buchanan’s primary consideration.

So Buchanan strolled past the two Mexican porters at the entrance to Club Internacional. Inside the lobby, he eased beyond a group of jovial American tourists on their way to Cancun’s Hard Rock Cafe and tried not to breathe the perfumed, acrid odor of insecticide that the hotel periodically sprayed along its corridors to discourage the area’s considerable population of cockroaches. Buchanan wondered which the guests hated more-the offending spray or the ubiquitous insects that after a while seemed as commonplace as the area’s numerous lizards. While a maid unobtrusively swept up dead insects, Buchanan hesitated at the rear of the lobby just long enough to notice a Japanese guest coming through a door beside the gift shop on the left. That door, Buchanan knew, led to balconies, rooms, and stairwells to the beach. One of many exits. In working order. So far so good.

To his right, he proceeded along a short hallway and came to steps that went down to a restaurant. As on previous nights, the restaurant was moderately busy, just enough for Buchanan and his contact to be inconspicuous but not so busy that they’d be surrounded by potential eavesdroppers.

Again, so far so good. Perhaps I’m wrong, Buchanan thought. Perhaps everything’s going to be fine.

Don’t kid yourself, a warning voice insisted.

Hey, I’m not about to cancel a meeting just because I’ve got a case of nerves.

He felt briefly reassured when a Mexican waiter came over and agreed to sit him at the table he requested. That table was ideally situated in the far right corner, away from the other diners, near the exit to the hotel’s gardens. Buchanan chose a chair that put his back to the wall and gave him a view of the stairs leading down to the restaurant. The air conditioning cooled his sweat. He glanced at his watch: 9:25. His contact would be here in five minutes. Pretending to study a menu, he tried to seem calm.

At once, pulse increasing, he noticed two men appear at the top of the stairs that led to the restaurant.

But Buchanan had expected to meet only one man.

Both were Hispanic. Both wore beige linen suits that were stylishly wrinkled, their yellow silk shirts open to their breast-bones. Each had a gold Rolex watch, as well as several gold neck chains and bracelets. Each was thin, in his thirties, with chiseled, narrow, severe features and thick, dark, slicked-back hair gathered in a ponytail. Their hooded eyes were as dark as their hair, and like their hair, their eyes glinted. Predator’s eyes. Hawk’s eyes. Merciless eyes. The men were gemelos, twins, and as they descended toward the restaurant, they braced their shoulders, puffed out their chests, and exuded confidence, the world at their command.