Assumed Identity (1993) (32 page)

'Well, you'd better think about it now.'

Buchanan's skull ached more fiercely. 'Why is this being done to me? I didn't screw up. Nothing that happened was my fault. I compensated perfectly. The operation wasn't damaged.'

'Ah, but it could have been.'

'That still would not have been my fault,' Buchanan said.

'We're not discussing fault. We're discussing what did and didn't happen and what almost happened. Maybe you've become unlucky. The bottom line is you're thirty-two. In this game, that makes you a senior citizen. Eight years? Christ, it's amazing you're still alive. It's time to walk away.'

'The fact that I'm still alive proves how good I am. I don't deserve.'

The rain increased, drumming on the car's roof. The windshield wipers flapped harder.

'Did you ever see your file?'

Despite his pain, Buchanan shook his head.

'Would you like to?'

'No.'

'The psychological profile is very revealing.'

'I'm not interested.'

'You've got what's called a "dissociative personality."'

'I told you I'm not interested.'

The man changed lanes again, maintaining speed despite the rain. 'I'm not a psychologist, but the file made sense to me. You don't like yourself. You do everything you can to keep from looking inward. You split away. You identify with people and objects around you. You objectify. You. dissociate.'

Buchanan frowned ahead at the traffic obscured by the rain.

'In average society, that condition would be a liability,' the man continued. 'But your trainers realized what a prize they had when their computer responded to a survey by choosing your profile. In high school, you'd already demonstrated a talent - perhaps a better term is compulsion - for acting. At Benning and Bragg, your Special Ops commanders gave you glowing reports for your combat skills. Considering the unique slant of your personality, all that remained to qualify you was even more specialized training at the Farm.'

'I don't want to hear any more,' Buchanan said.

'You're an ideal undercover operative. It's no wonder you were able to assume multiple identities for eight years, and that your commanders thought you were capable of doing so without breaking down. Hell, yes. You'd already broken down. Working under cover was the way you healed. You hated yourself so much that you'd do anything, you'd suffer anything for the chance not to be yourself.'

Buchanan calmly reached out and grasped the man's right elbow.

'Hey,' the man said.

Buchanan's middle finger found the nerve he wanted.

'Hey,' the man repeated.

Buchanan squeezed.

The man screamed. Jerking from pain, he caused the car to swerve, its rear tires fishtailing on the wet, slick pavement. Behind and in the passing lane, other drivers swerved in startled response and blared their horns.

'Now the way this is going to work,' Buchanan said, 'is either you'll shut up or else you'll feel what it's like to lose control of a car doing fifty-five miles an hour.'

The man's face was the color of concrete. His mouth hung open in agony. Sweat beaded his brow as he struggled to keep control of the car.

He nodded.

'Good,' Buchanan said. 'I knew we could reach an understanding.' Releasing his grip, he sat rigidly straight and looked forward.

The man mumbled something.

'What?' Buchanan asked.

'Nothing,' the man answered.

'That's what I thought.'

But Buchanan knew what the man had said.

Because of your brother.

Chapter 11.

'What's he doing now?' the man who called himself Alan asked as he entered the apartment directly above Buchanan's.

'Nothing,' the muscular man, Major Putnam, said. He sipped from a styrofoam cup of coffee and watched the television monitors. Again he wore civilian clothes.

'Well, he must be doing something.' Alan glanced around the apartment. The colonel and Captain Weller weren't around.

'Nope,' Major Putnam said. 'Nothing. When he came in, I figured he'd pour himself a drink, go to the bathroom, read a magazine, watch television, do exercises, whatever. But all he did was go over to the sofa. There he is. That's what he's been doing since you left him. Nothing.'

Alan approached the row of television monitors. Massaging his right elbow where the nerve that Buchanan had pinched still troubled him, he frowned at a black-and-white image of Buchanan sitting on the sofa. 'Jesus.'

Buchanan sat bolt-straight, motionless, his expression rigid, his intense gaze focused on a chair across from him.

'Jesus,' Alan repeated. 'He's catatonic. Does the colonel know about this?'

'I phoned him.'

'And?'

'I'm supposed to keep watching. What did the two of you talk about? When he came in, he looked.'

'It's what we didn't talk about.'

'I don't understand.'

'His brother.'

'Christ,' the major said, 'you know that's an off-limits subject.'

'I wanted to test him.'

'Well, you certainly got a reaction.'

'Yeah, but it's not the one I wanted.'

Chapter 12.

Buchanan was reminded of an old story about a donkey between two bales of hay. The donkey stood exactly midpoint between the bales. Each bale was the same size and had the same fragrance. With no reason to choose one bale over the other, the donkey starved to death.

The story - which could never happen in the real world because the donkey could never be exactly at midpoint and the bales could never be exactly the same - was a theoretical way to illustrate the problem of free will. The ability to choose, which most people took for granted, depended on certain conditions, and without them, a person could be motiveless, just as Buchanan found that he was now.

His brother.

Buchanan had so thoroughly worked to obliterate the memory that for the past eight years he'd managed not to be conscious of the critical event that controlled his behavior. Not once had he thought about it. On rare occasions of weakness, late at night, weary, he might sense the nightmare lurking in the darkness of his subconscious, crouching, about to spring. Then he would muster all his strength of resolve to thrust up a mental wall of denial, of refusal to accept the unacceptable.

Even now, with his defenses taken from him, with his identity exposed, unshielded, he was repulsed sufficiently that the memory was able to catch him only partially, in principle but not in detail.

His brother. His wonderful brother.

Twelve years old.

Sweet Tommy.

Was dead.

And he had killed him.

Buchanan felt as if he were trapped by ice. He couldn't move. He sat on the sofa, and his legs, his back, his arms were numb, his entire body cold, paralyzed. He kept staring toward the chair in front of him, not seeing it, barely aware of time.

Five o'clock.

Six o'clock.

Seven o'clock.

The room was in darkness. Buchanan kept staring, seeing nothing.

Tommy was dead.

And he had killed him.

Blood.

He'd clutched Tommy's stake-impaled body, trying to tug him free.

Tommy's cheeks had been terribly pale. His breathing had sounded like bubbles. His moan had been liquid, as if he were gargling. But what he gargled hadn't been salt water. It had been.

Blood.

'Hurts. Hurts so bad.'

'Tommy, oh, God, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to.'

Push him.

Just horsing around.

Didn't think Tommy would lose his balance and fall.

Didn't know anything was down in the pit.

A construction site. A summer evening. Two brothers on an adventure.

'Hurts so bad.'

'Tommy!'

'Doesn't hurt anymore.'

'Tommy!'

So much blood.

When Buchanan was fifteen.

Still catatonic, sitting bolt-straight on the sofa, staring at the darkness, Buchanan felt as if a portion of his mind were raising arms, trying to ward off the terrible memory. Although he was chilled, sweat beaded his brow. Too much, he thought. He hadn't remembered in such detail since the days and nights before Tommy's funeral and the unendurable summer that followed, the guilt-laden, seemingly endless season of grief that finally had ended when.

Buchanan's mind darted and burrowed, seeking any protection it could from the agonizing memory of Tommy's blood on his clothes, of the stake projecting from Tommy's chest.

'It's all my fault.'

'No, you didn't mean to do it,' Buchanan's mother had said.

'I killed him.'

'It was an accident,' Buchanan's mother had said.

But Buchanan hadn't believed her, and he was certain that he'd have gone insane if he hadn't found a means to protect himself from his mind. The answer turned out to be amazingly simple, wonderfully self-evident. Become someone else.

Dissociative personality. Buchanan imagined himself as his favorite sports and rock stars, as certain movie and television actors whom he idolized. He suddenly became a reader - of novels into which he could escape and become the hero with whom he so desperately wanted to identify. In high school that autumn, he discovered the drama club, subconsciously motivated by the urge to perfect the skills he would need to maintain his protective assumed identities, the personas that would allow him to escape from himself.

Then after high school, perhaps to prove himself, perhaps to punish himself, perhaps to court an early death, he'd joined the military, not just any branch, the Army, so he could enter Special Forces. The name said it all - to be special. He wanted to sacrifice himself, to atone. And one thing more - if he saw enough death, perhaps one death in particular would no longer haunt him.

As the man who called himself Alan had indicated, Buchanan's Special Operations trainers realized what a prize they had when their computer responded to a survey by choosing Buchanan's profile. A man who desperately needed to assume identities. An operative who wouldn't be wearied but on the contrary would flourish for long periods under deep cover.

Now they were stripping away his barriers, taking away his shields, exposing the guilt that had compelled him to be an operative and that he had managed to subdue.

Buchanan? Who the hell was Buchanan? Jim Crawford was a man he understood. So was Ed Potter. And Victor Grant. And all the others. He'd invented detailed personal backgrounds for each of them. Some of his characters were blessed (in Richard Dana's case literally, for Dana believed that he was the recipient of the grace of God as a born-again Christian). Others carried burdens (Ed Potter's wife had divorced him for a man who earned more money). Buchanan knew how each of them dressed (Robert Chambers was formal and always wore a suit and tie). He knew which kinds of music each liked (Peter Sloane was crazy about country and western), and which foods (Jim Crawford hated cauliflower), and which types of women (Richard Dana liked brunettes), and which types of movies (Brian MacDonald could watch Singin' in the Rain every night of the week), and.

Who the hell was Buchanan? It was significant that Buchanan and his controllers always thought of him in terms of his last name. Impersonal. Objective. After eight years of having impersonated -correction, of having been - hundreds of people, Buchanan had no idea of how to impersonate himself. What were his speech mannerisms? Did he have a distinctive walk? Which types of clothes, food, music, et cetera, did he prefer? Was he religious? Did he have any hobbies? Favorite cities? What came naturally?

Christ, he hadn't been Buchanan in so long that he didn't know who Buchanan was. He didn't want to know who Buchanan was. The story of the donkey between the two bales of hay was his story. He was caught between the identity of Victor Grant, who was dead, and the identity of Don Colton, who wasn't formed. With no way to turn, with nothing to help him choose whom to be, he was paralyzed.

Self-defense made the difference - protective instincts. Sitting rigidly in the quiet, dark room, he heard a noise, the scrape of a key in the front door's lock. A portion of his mind jolted him. His body was no longer cold and numb. His lethargy drained, dispelled by adrenaline.

The doorknob creaked. As someone in the outside hallway slowly pushed the door open, the glare of fluorescent lights spilling in, Buchanan was already off the sofa. He darted to the left and disappeared into the darkness of the bedroom. He heard the flick of a switch and stepped back farther into the bedroom as light filled the living room. He heard a metallic scratch as someone removed the key from the lock. He heard a soft thunk as the door was gently shut.

Cautious footsteps made a brushing sound as they inched across the carpet.

He tensed.

'Buchanan?' The voice was familiar. It belonged to the portly man who called himself Alan. But the voice sounded wary, troubled. 'Buchanan?'

Uneasy, Buchanan didn't want to respond to that name. Nonetheless he showed himself, careful to keep partially in the shadows of the bedroom.